Braunia.] BRYACE.E. 153 



large, cucullate, descending to the middle or to the base of the 

 capsule, long-beaked, smooth, fuscous. Capsule long-pedicellate, 

 narrowly elliptical, regular, subincurved, with a short obconical 

 diffluent collum, rarely subglobose, with a narrow orifice, wide- 

 mouthed when deoperculate. 



Subgenus I. PSEUDOBRAUNIA. 



Leaves diaphanous at the apex, not j^licate ; areolation quad- 

 rate on the borders, elongated, linear or equilateral in the 

 middle, fusiform toward the apex, papillose on the back. Cap- 

 sule long-pedicellate, pyriform or turbinate ; lid short-conical, 

 mamillate. 



1. B. Californica, Lesq. Plants in loose tufts, diversely 

 much divided ; branches erect, julaceous, generally thicker at the 

 apex, simple or divided into short branchlets, sometimes Hagel- 

 late : leaves appressed when dry, spreading when moist, sub- 

 decurrent at base, from oblong to broadly ovate, narrowed into 

 a pellucid more or less elongated crenulate flexuous apex ; 

 borders reflexed : cajDSule lateral by elongation of the branches, 

 pyriform, distinctly necked, truncate and enlarged at the orifice 

 when empty. — Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. xiii. 8 ; SulUv. & Lesq. 

 Muse. Bor.-Amer. Exsicc. (ed. 2), n. 226 ; Sulliv. Icon. Muse. 

 Suppl. 41, t. 27. 



Var. pilifera. Leaves more abruptly acuminate into a 

 pellucid point : capsule more enlarged at the orifice when dry, 

 and more distinctly plicate. — Hedioigia pilifera^ Mitt. Journ. 

 Linn. Soc. viii. 45. 



Hab. Metamorphic rocks in the mountains of California; Monte 

 Diablo, etc. (liolander); the variety on rocks, Vancouver Island [Lyall). 

 Common on the Pacific Coast and Yery variable. 



Modified as the genus is here it includes both the genera Hedwigidium 

 and Braunia of Bruch & Schimper. In the description of B. Californica, 

 Sullivant (Icon. Muse. Suppl. 41) rightly remarks that this species does 

 not fall naturally into any of the genera of Schimper's Iledwigiacece ; 

 that it has the short plicate capsule of Hedwigidium, and very nearly its 

 calyptra and operculum, the long pedicel of Braunia, and somewhat the 

 same shape of leaf and areolation; but that the genus Braunia differs espe- 

 cially in its long smooth elliptical capsule, the long operculum and calyp- 

 tra, and the leaves opaque, not pellucid to the apex. The moss described 

 above has also a degree of affinity with Hedwigia, but a difference equally 



