26 ANDEE^ACE^. [Andrecea. 



3. A. crassinervia, Bruch. Stem prostrate, fragile : 

 leaves falcate-secund, oblong at base, abruptly lanceolate, 

 cuspidate by the semiterete excurrent costa, papillose at the 

 apex ; jDericlioetial leaves large : capsule small, short-necked. — 

 Denkschr. Acad. Muench. 1828, 279, t. 10 ; Bryol. Eur. t. 633 ; 

 Braithw. 1. c. 11, t. 1, C. 



Hab. Mountains of New England (Oakes). 



Order III. BRYACE^. True Mosses. 



Plants generally low and tufted, from a filiform prothallium, 

 with short, fleshy or hard, elongated, round or slightly com- 

 pressed, rarely angular stems, either rooting at base and erect, 

 bearing the organs of fructification at the apex {Acrocarpi) 

 and continued by innovations from below the flowers, or pro- 

 cumbent and creeping, rooting at intervals through their whole 

 length, and bearing flowers on short lateral branches ( Clado- 

 carjn), or in buds at the axils of the leaves {Pleuro carpi). 

 Leaves inserted at right angles to the stems, open-spreading or 

 oblique-erect, comj^osed of a single layer of cells, rarely of two 

 or three, simple-nerved in the middle or binerved at base or 

 nerveless. Flowers gemmaceous or inclosed in involucral 

 leaves {perichoitium, and perigonium)^ rarely discoid or ex- 

 posed to view, surrounded by open involucral leaves at the apex 

 of the stems, synoecious, autoecious, monoecious or dioecious. 

 Capsule globular, oblong, oval or cylindrical, traversed length- 

 wise by the columella, irregularly breaking around in the 

 middle at maturity for the emission of spores, or more gen- 

 erally opening at its upper part by a cover {op>erci(lum) de- 

 tached by the inflation of the cells of the annulus and ex- 

 230sing the orifice, which is either naked {gymnostome) or 

 surrounded by a simple or double peristome attached to the 

 inner border of the capsule. The simple or outer peristome is 

 composed of 4 to 32 teeth or more, coherent in pairs ; the 

 inner is formed of a yellowish pellucid membrane attached to 



