Four-toothed Mosses 



vanishing below the apex or passing into it; cells, toward the 

 base loose, red, the marginal of several rows narrower and paler. 



Habit of flowering. Male and female flowers on one plant 

 (monoicous) . 



Veil (calyptra). Straw-colour, descending far below the 

 base of the spore-case, bordered at the base by lance-shaped 

 solid white or orange segments. 



Pedicel. Long; yellow or pale- red. 



Spore-case. Cylindrical, smooth, slightly constricted under 

 the mouth when dry, the neck short and indistinct. 



Lid (operculum) . Conic, with a long slender beak. 



Teeth (peristome}. Rarely absent, single, of 16 narrowly 

 lance-shaped red teeth, sometimes divided into two irregular seg- 

 ments, connivent when dry, incurved when moist. 



Distribution. Mountain regions of New England, the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Pacific slope, Europe and Africa. 



FOUR -TOOTHED MOSSES 

 Genus GEORGIA, Ehrh. 



The species of the Genus Georgia are erect, growing in clus- 

 ters but not matted, on the ground, on rotten wood and sandstone. 



The lower leaves are small, distant and scale-like; the upper 

 leaves are longer, broadly lance-shaped, close and tufted at the 

 apex of the stems; the vein reaches to below the apex; the cells 

 are somewhat six-sided, less crowded and linear rectangular at 

 the base. Linear root-leaves (frondiform) or whip-like leafy 

 branches are often present. These frondiform leaves appear in 

 some species only in the protonemal stage, while in other species 

 they persist at the base. 



The spore-cases are cylindrical or oval on long slender, smooth, 

 brown pedicels which are straight or abruptly bent. The lids 

 are conical with mitre-like veils. The four teeth arising from 

 just below the rim of the box are a conspicuous character of the 

 genus. They are formed by the splitting of a solid mass of pithy 

 tissue within the lid into four slender triangular segments, red 

 and slightly furrowed on the back. A cross section of a tooth 

 shows it to be triangular and composed externally of large trans- 

 parent cells and internally of small thick-walled pointed cells. 

 There is no annulus. 



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