— 50— 

 Webera Proligera in Amesbury, Mass. 



There is a small brook in this town about a mile in length, flowing 

 through sandy land and emptying into the Merrimac river. For some dis- 

 tance from the head of this stream the banks are covered with various 

 mosses, but I have never found any of the Webera group; the brook is then 

 joined by another rivulet which has cut for itself a channel in the live sand 

 some thirty feet in depth. These banks of wet sand are densely covered 

 with Webera proligera (Lind)Kind. From this place on, both banks of the 

 brook are covered with this moss, although hardly any fruit can be found 

 anywhere It is easy to see how this wonderful multiplication is brought 

 about, for in the autumn one can find plenty of the peculiar bulbils which 

 grow on the stem of this moss near its apex, but in the spring these growths 

 are mostly gone. In the winter season the banks are covered with ice and 

 snow and deposit them in the mud further down, thus producing plants all 

 along.— y. W. Huntington in Rhodora for April, igoi. 



In the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden for ]\Iay, 1901, Mrs. Brit- 

 ton has a very interesting note on Physcomitrium turbinatum and its varia- 

 tions. Plants grown from earth potted in September in comparative darkness 

 in the green houses with steam pipes overhead, matured capsules by January 

 but the plants were small with setae about one cm. long. In January the pots 

 were removed to more favorable positions with bottom heat and more light 

 when spores from the same pots and undoubtedly of the same kind, devel- 

 oped plants with setae twice as long, of a lighter color, and with smaller 

 and more turbinate capsules. These last in every way resembled the Loui- 

 siana specimens which have been called var. Langloisii R. & C. The rough- 

 ness of the spore, the amount of thickening of the elongated cells around 

 the mouth, the shape of the capsules and the amount of contraction below 

 the mouthwhen. were all found to be dependent upon the stage ot develop- 

 ment reached by the plants before becoming dry and shrivelled. "So that 

 the amount of rain in spring would alter and control these characters and 

 cause considerable variation, even in the same patch." As these are just the 

 characters upon which many varietal and specific distinctions are based, it 

 is easy to see the importance of Mrs. Britton's observations. A.J. G. 



NOTES ON RARE AND LITTLE KNOWN MOSSES. 



By J. M. HOLZINGER. 



DITRICHUM ELATUM Kindb. For years I have collected near Win- 

 ona a sterile moss, the generic relationship of which I could not satisfactorily 

 determine. Not more successful were several of my bryological friends to 

 whom I submitted it. To Mr. W. C. Nicholson is due the credit of 

 placing it in the vicinity of Ditrichiim flexicaule densum (Schimp.). There- 



