40 BRYACE^. [Si)h(jErangium. 



acuminate, rosulate, serrate above, costate to near the apex : 

 antheridia sessile in the axil of a leaf, or in young plants termi- 

 nal in the buds and becoming lateral by the growth of the 

 female flower : capsule immersed, or pedicellate and exserted. — 

 Bryol. Eur. t. 3. Fhascuin patens^ Hedw. Stirp. Crypt, i. 28, 

 t. 10; Sulliv. Mosses of U. States, 15. 



Hab. Wet clayey or sandy grouud in bottoms, on the banks of rivers, 

 etc. ; not rare in Ohio. 



4. SPH^RANGIUM, Schimp. 



Plants gemmiform, very small, gregarious or irregularly 

 loosely cespitose. Lower leaves very small, the upj^er very 

 large, subconvolute-imbricated or clustered in a small bulb- 

 like head, concave or carinate, costate, minutely papillose on 

 the back or on both sides. Male and female flowers cohering, 

 or rooting as distinct plants. Capsule either short-pedicellate 

 and erect or on a longer slender curved pedicel, spherical, 

 enclosed in the perichatium. Calyptra erect, very small, 

 mitriform. SjDores small, subglobose, minutely granulose, 

 brown. 



1. S. muticum, Schimp. Plant yellowish brown: lower 

 and middle leaves ovate-acuminate, more or less recurved at the 

 apex and mucronate by the excurrent costa ; upper leaves two, 

 rarely three, twice as large as the lower, mucronate by the 

 excurrent recurved costa or irregularly erose at the apex : cap- 

 sule short-pedicellate, erect, slightly mamillate at top, orange. 

 — Syn. Muse. 13. Phasctwi muticum, Schreb. Phase, t. 1, 

 fig. 11, 12 ; Sulliv. Mosses of U. States, 15. Acaulon muticum, 

 Muell. Syn. ; Bryol. Eur. t. 4. 



Hab. California {Bolander). 



2. S. rufescens. Plants greenish yellow: lower leaves 

 very small, ecostate, the upper very large, convolute in an 



authors include the genus Ephemerum as the lowest member of the Phj/s- 

 comitriece. "We have here retained the classification followed by the 

 recent authors whose works are more generally known and more acces- 

 sible to students, — Schimper, Wilson, Sullivant, etc., — not merely be- 

 cause it has been adoj^ted by all American bryologists, but because it is by 

 far the simplest, and the most serviceable in the study of mosses. 



