1908. Notes, i6i 



Note on Dicranum Scottii. 



In tlie paper ou Rosa hibernica, reprinted from the /ounial of Botany 

 in the Irish Naturalist for October, 1907, p. 309, Mr. Britten, while cor- 

 recting certain errors regarding the references for Rosa hibemica and the 

 two mosses, Scliistidium inariiimiim and Dicraniini Scottii, unconsciously 

 confers a further favour upon Irish bota'jistsby correcting another error 

 concerning one of these plants. The passage to which I refer occurs in a 

 paper by Dr. David Moore, entitled " A Sj'nopsis of the Mosses of 

 Ireland/' which was published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish 

 Academy for 1872, p. 448. In this Moore wrote concerning the moss 

 Hypniini revolve ns—''^ It was for the discovery of this moss and Schist idiuvi 

 maritinium, and for a vegetable substance, that Dr. Robert Scott received 

 a premium of ;<"i7 is. 2,d. from the Dublin vSociet}' in 1803." And he gives 

 the reference, '• Dublin Society Proceedings, xxxix., p. 82 (1803)." This 

 reference should be " Vol. iii., p. 15S," and the name of the moss should 

 read Dicranrnn Scottii. 



The Dublin Society had offered {Trans. Dub, Soc. iii., p. 36, 1803) 

 amongst other "Premiums," one for "Producing native plants not 

 hitherto described. — To any person who vShall in the year 1803 produce 

 to the Society any plant, tree, shrub, or herb, so far peculiar to Ireland 

 as that it is native, and is not described in any work of Linnaeus or the 

 late botanists, the sum of five guineas." As Mr. Britten has shown 

 John Templeton got for the rose ;^5 13^-. 9<^., and Dr. Scott got;^i7 \s. ^^d., 

 the equivalent of fifteen guineas Irish currency, for " Three new species 

 of mosses." 



And in the same volume (iii.), at p. 158, is a communication by Scott 

 giving brief descriptions, with excellent copper-plate illustrations, of the 

 two mosses, which undoubtedly are as they are nam^di, Dicranum Scottii 

 and Schistidhim 7naritimnm. I have not discovered what led Moore into 

 the error, but it is manifest that he had not consulted the Dublin 

 Society's Proceedings, and, curiou.sly enough, the volume in the 

 Society's library, which the Librarian courteously allowed me to consult, 

 had never been opened at the place in question till one day in last 

 April when I cut the page.«^. 



Mr. Britten has made a slip when he writes of Turner's work as his 

 Mtiscologite Hibcrnicce Specimen, this last word should read Spicileginm. 

 Dr. Scott, after whom Turner named this moss, discovered it in 1802, 

 " among the n ountains that lie to the S.W. of Swanlinbar, on the banks 

 of a rivulet." 



H. W. Lett. 

 Loughbrickland, Co. Down. 



Mayo Mosses and Liverworts. — A Correction, 



The title of my paper on " Musci and Hepaticae from Co. Maj'o,'' in 

 Irish Naturalist for November, 1907, should read " Musci ajid Hepaticae 

 from West Galway," as all the localities mentioned lie in the latter area. 



D. McArdi^e;. 

 Glasneviu. 



