Dec. 1, 1870.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



275 



of them had opened, and was crowned with a most 

 beautiful circle of tentacles in full action, feeding 

 on infusoria — Monads and Panavnecium ; this was 

 on September 21st. Oa October 5th the position 

 had changed ; one side of the shell has nearly 

 dropped off, the Plumatella has enlarged consider- 

 ably, and beiug close to the glass, I can see the 

 action of its tiny stomach. 



Fig. 220. The tunic of a dead Poiyp filied with Statoblasts. 



In another part of the aquarium, just protruding 

 from beneath a Lemna leaf, are two Polypes in 

 semi-transparent tubes. The heat of the sunny 

 south window has, no doubt, caused this premature 

 hatching of Statoblasts, though the glass is shaded 

 with brown paper. L. Lane Clarke. 



GRIMMIA UNGERI, Juratzka, 1862. 



A new European Moss discovered in Aberdeenshire. 



A BOUT the end of May last I came upon a 

 -*"*- Grimmia which had an unfamiliar aspect ; it 

 was growing in great abundance, forming large, 

 compact, dark greenish-grey tufts, and fruiting 

 freely. The capsules were of a deep brown or 

 chocolate colour ; were over ripe ; had shed the 

 calyptra, and, in most cases, the lid. As the locality 

 in which I found the plant was not very far from 

 Ballater, Aberdeenshire, in the neighbourhood of 

 which Messrs. Roy and Barker had, in the pre- 

 ceding summer, discovered barren specimens of 

 Grimmia montana, my first impression was that I 

 had come upon Grimmia montana in fruit ; but the 

 fact that Grimmia montana is one of the dioecious 

 mosses, the fruit of which is rare, and the abundance 

 of fruit in this case, awakened some suspicions in 

 my mind as to the identity of the two, suspicions 

 which at once subsided on my remembering that in 

 the case of Grimmia unicolor, in the Clova station, 

 scarcely a barren tuft is to be seen, although this 

 moss also is dioecious. On examining the Ballater 



plant after my return, it proved monoecious ; and 

 this, in spite of the warning colour and texture of 

 the capsule, misled me into believing it to be only 

 a very extraordinary form of Grimmia Donniana. In 

 July I carefully re-examined it, and found a solitary 

 calyptra, which being dimidiate, thus separated it 

 from the Leucopheaca group of the Rectiseta;, just 

 as the monoecious inflorescence separated it from the 

 Commutataj group, as defined by Schimper. It ap- 

 peared to me to stand as a connecting link between 

 the two groups, and, finding it different from all the 

 Grimmise known to me, I issued it to several of my 

 correspondents under the name of {Grimmia inter- 

 media. About a month afterwards I came upon 

 Juratzka's description of Grimmia Ungeri, a moss 

 gathered by the late distinguished Dr. Unger on 

 Mount Olympus, in the island of Cyprus, and at 

 once perceived that the two mosses were identical. 

 I then sent specimens to Juratzka, and he has con- 

 firmed my opinion; so has Mr. Wilson, on my 

 sending him specimens of the moss from Cyprus and 

 Ballater. 



Grimmia Ungeri will be fully described and 

 figured in the Journal of Botany by-and-by, so that 

 it is only necessary to state here that it can at once 

 be distinguished from Grimmia Donniana by the 

 much larger tufts, the dimidiate calyptra, and the 

 deep brown (not pale yellow) capsule ; from 

 Grimmia alpestris, which it closely resembles, and 

 from Grimmia montana, by the monoecious inflores- 

 cence. 



The discovery of Grimmia Ungeri adds another 

 species to the list of European mosses. Besides 

 this, it has other points of interest ; it has only once 

 been gathered before, and then, as already men- 

 tioned, by Dr. Unger, whose life was so brave, and 

 whose death was so sad. In Cyprus it is a purely 

 littoral plant ; in Aberdeenshire it occurs at least 

 forty miles inland, and at an elevation of 1,500 to 

 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. Like Plantago 

 maritime/,, Silene maritima, Statice maritima, Coch- 

 learea, Lychnis alpina, and, other flowering plants, 

 though its true home seems to be " within the 

 hearing of the waves," it, at the same time, is to 

 be met with most unaccountably on the loftiest 

 ranges in the land. In all probability it will be found 

 elsewhere in Britain, and should be carefully sought 

 for on Hobcartin Fell, Cumberland, on Bernam 

 Hill, and on the Greenhill Strathdon. 



Clova, with the Aberdeenshire mountains imme- 

 diately adjoining, is the rendezvous of the Grimmia. 

 With very few exceptions, all the British, and by far 

 the greater part of the European species, have con- 

 gregated there within a very limited area. Place 

 yourself at the Queen's Hut, close by Loch Muick, 

 and within a circle with a radius of about eight 

 miles, you have, besides the commoner species, such 

 rarissimce as Grimmia atrata, elongata, unicolor, 

 commutata, montana, contort a, ovata, robusta or 



