110 JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE 



to that of the rest of Brazil. The Mosses are mostly pleurocarpous, 

 and comprise a great number of minute Hypnums, and a good many 

 Hookerias. A pretty species of the latter genus, frequent on logs in 

 the moist forest near San Carlos, seems to be the Hookeria pallescens 

 •which you described in ' Musci Exotici/ from specimens gathered by 

 Humboldt at Esmeralda. I shall endeavour to look up all Humboldt's 

 species from this region. Among acrocarpous Mosses^ the commonest, 

 and perhaps the most beautiful, is OdoUepharum alhidum^ which grows 

 everywhere on trees, both in wet and dry situations ; 0. cyUndricum. 

 is much less frequent, and I have mostly seen it on palm-trunks; I 

 expect r have one or two new species of this genus. There are a good 

 many minute species of Fissidens, whose habitat is chiefly on termites* 

 nests on the ground or in trees. The genera Macromitriuvty Syrrliopo- 

 don^ and Calympere% have all representatives, but they are far from being 

 so abundant as I expected to find them. On the other hand, I have met 

 with species of some genera considered peculiar to cooler climates, as, 

 for instance, an Anacalypta at Santarem, and a Pliascnm at San Gabriel. 

 On the Eio Negro, a very common and a very handsome Moss is Leu- 

 cohryum (Dicranum) Martlanum ; it gi'ows on wet logs, and has the 

 additional merit of fruiting copiously. I have been somewhat disap- 

 pointed, that since I set foot in Soutli America, now more than four 

 years ago, I have not once seen Funaria hygrometrica^ — the Moss 

 which, as some one has said, more poetically than truly, "springs up 

 wherever the wild Indian has lighted his fire." I have seen hundreds 

 of places in Amazonian forests where Indians, wild and tame, have 

 lighted fires, and the plants which spring up in such places are not 

 Mosses : I shall some day be able to tell you what they mostly are. 

 There is a Moss which seems partial to charred trunks ; it resembles 

 Hypntim tamanscinum in miniature, and I take it to be ZT, zjitolvens. 

 Ceratodon purpureus is an almost constant companion of Funaria hygrO' 

 metrica in Europe, and has, like it, the reputation of being cosmopolite, 

 but I have never seen it here. 



The Hepatic^ have been everywhere much more numerous than the 

 Mosses, and will, I hope, comprise much that is new. The great mass 

 belong to the genus Lejeunia^ but there are several species of Ompha- 

 lanthus, Phragmicoma, Masttgohryunt^ FlagiocJiila, Aneura^ etc. One 

 of the commonest Hepaticce on the Rio Negro is a Sphagnoecetis, quite 

 like our Jutigermannia SpJiagni in aspect, but smaller, and fruiting 



