ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 207 



Hepaticre with a view to its importance as an aid to classification. He 

 finds the following general rules : 1. When a genus is a natural one the 

 characters of the pedicel are identical in all its species. 2. The characters 

 derived from the pedicel are generic at least, never specific. 8. Of all 

 the parts of the sporogonium the pedicel is the least subject to variation 

 and consequently is very constant. It has an exceptional importance 

 in classification. 



Classification of Mosses * — V. F. Brotherus continues his account 

 of the mosses in Engler and Prantl's Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien. 

 After finishing off the remaining tribes of Hypnaceaa, namely, the 

 Hylocomieaa (among which the genus Hypnum is found restricted to 

 one species, H. Schreberi), he treats of the Stereodontese (with seven 

 genera) and the Plagiothecieaa (seven genera). In Leucomiaceae are 

 two genera, in Seinatophyllacese are twelve, in Rhegmatodontacege are 

 two, in Brachytheciacese are twenty (thirteen of which are treated in 

 the present part). 



Report of the Moss Exchange Club.t — The Moss Exchange Club 

 in their thirteenth annual report give several pages of records of mosses 

 and hepatics found in Britain. To some of the species descriptive or 

 critical notes are appended. Five of the species had never previously 

 been discovered in this country ; hence English descriptions of them are 

 included in the report. 



Yorkshire Muscinese. — W. Ingham $ reports upon the more 

 interesting hepatics collected during an excursion of the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union to Topcliffe, Yorks. Mention is made of the rare 

 hepatic, Cephalozia fluitans, of some rare forms of Sphagnum, of 

 Plaijiothecium latebricola, and other mosses. 



He also reports § upon the bryological results obtained during the 

 August excursion to the Western fringe of the Cleveland Hills, in the 

 vicinity of Osmotherley, where the most interesting finds were some 

 forms of Sphagnum. 



Scottish Muscinese. || — W. Evans gives a list of the mosses and 

 hepatics obtained at various times from the Island of May, at the 

 Mouth of the Firth of Forth, namely, eighteen mosses and seven 

 hepatics. The two most interesting species are Bryum alpinum and 

 Frullania germana, the one being rarely found at a low level hi the 

 east of Scotland, and the other being what is called an " Atlantic," or 

 West Coast species. Fissidms viridulus and Grimmia Stirtoni are also 

 worthy of note. 



J. Stirton.f continuing his researches into the minute structure of 

 mosses in the barren state, describes as new, six species gathered in various 

 parts of Scotland :— Grimmia fuliginosa, from Arisaig ; G. inmqitahs, 

 from near Glasgow and Forth Bridge ; Mnium gracilmtum, from near 



* Leipzig : Engelmann, 1908, lief. 232, 233, pp. 1057-1152 (figs. 758-813). 

 t York : Coultas and Volans, 1908, pp. 267-94. 

 J Naturalist, No. 618 (1908) pp. 281-2. 

 § Op. cit., No 622 (1908) pp. 407-9. 



Trans. Proc. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh, xxiii. (1908) pp. 318-51. 

 i Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., No. 67 (1908) pp. 171-6. 



