KEPORT ON THE BOTANY OF THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS. 89 



ovali-oblonga, erecta, operculo triente breviore. Calyptra usque ad medium thecae 

 descendens. Peristomium e dentibus geminatis filiformibus rubris. 



Bermudas. — In extensive patches on calcareous sand. 



Caulis lineas quatuor altus, gracilis. Folia flavo-viridia, aetate pallide fusca, sicca 

 incurvata, laxe contorta. Pedunculus subsemiuncialis, gracilis. Theca setate fusca, ore 

 intensiore colorato. 



A small species, which in general appearance is very similar to Weisia controversa, 

 but the capsules are not striate when dry and old. The peristome agrees with that found 

 in those species of Trichostomum which are closely allied to Trichostomum crispidum; and 

 although in the specimens examined the teeth are not contorted, the arrangement of the cells 

 of the operculum is oblique, as is usual in the Tortulce with distinctly twisted peristomes. 



Tortula (Hymenostylium) verticillata, Mitt. 



Bryum verticillatum, Linn., Sp. PL, ed. 2, p. 1585 ; C. Miiller, Synop. Muse. Frond., i. p. 656 (sub 



Weisia). 

 Eucladium verticillatum, Bruch. et Schimp., Bryol. Euro p. p. 3, t. i. 



Bermudas. — In small quantity without fruit. 



This species has been so variously arranged in Bryological works that it will be 

 necessary to assign the reasons for its position as above. It has been considered a Weisia, 

 Grimmia, Coscinodon; and at length, in the Bryologia Europea, it forms the genus 

 Eucladium, which, although pointed out by Wilson to be a name pre-occupied, has been 

 retained in the second edition of Schimper's Synopsis. If the characters of this genus be 

 considered, it will be found that they rest chiefly on the presence of the peristome. In 

 the first edition of the Synopsis, Eucladium is placed in the Pottiacece, and the author 

 says it is "genus paradoxum, sedis incertcB;" in the second edition it has been removed 

 to the family Weisiacese, and is placed next following Gymnostomum, which consists of 

 three species, only one of which, Gymnostomum curvirostrum, is found in that genus as 

 first enumerated in Hedwig's Species Muscorum, where it stands as Gymnostomum 

 recurvirostrum. With the exception of Gymnostomum tenue, all the other species then 

 recorded have since passed to genera founded on characters not dependent on the peri- 

 stome, such as Schistostega and Pkysiomitrium. 



In the Bryologia Universa, Bridel published in 1826 two genera which succeeding 

 authors have passed over almost unnoticed. Of these the first is Hymenostylium (1. c. 

 ii. 82) to contain the Gymnostomum xanthocarpum, Hooker (Musci Exotici, t. 153), a 

 species so intimately allied to the European Gymnostomum rupestre and Gymnostomum 

 curvirostrum, as mentioned in the original description, that they cannot be regarded 

 otherwise than as congeneric. This was not then evident to Bridel, for in the supplement 



(bot. chall exp. — part i. — 1884.) A 12 



