



MOSSES. 



1 WEISSIA. 2 POTTIA. 



3 PHYSCOMITERIUM. 



4 PETRAPHIS. 



first examination. The leaves were spreading, oval and 

 pointed, tlie urn wide-mouthed, and the hd swollen and 



slightly beaked. The whole 

 plant measured less than a 

 quarter of an inch. Several 

 plants were clustered together ; 

 the leaves in five rows, the 

 upper ones crowded, the lower 

 more distant ; the roundish urn 

 and convex lid made me believe 

 it a Pottia, so called from the 

 German professor, Pott, the 

 first person who studied this family. My cousin came in 

 and settled my doubts by assuring me that it was the 

 Common Pottia (Pottia truncata, Plate VI, fig. 4). 



The book informed us that there are an Oval-leaved 

 Pottia and a Dwarf Pottia, an Oval-fruited Pottia, a 

 Bristly Pottia, and a Lance-leaved Pottia, all of which 

 frequent mud, sandy banks, or fallow ground. All these 

 Pottias are without fringe at the mouth of the urn. 



A specimen of Starke's Pottia (Anacalypta Starkeana), 

 one of the species gifted with a fringe, was my reward 

 for services on another occasion ; it much resembles the 

 Common Pottia : its redder and more oval urn, with the 

 blunt lid and the dark or yellowish green of the leaves, 

 distinguish it. 



The group Trichostomae, or Hair-mouthed mosses, 

 contains four families : the Two-ranked mosses, the Twin- 

 toothed mosses, the Hair-mouthed mosses, and the Screw 

 mosses. 



The first family have single fringes, containing sixteen 



