54 A.MERICAN Midland Naturalist Monograph No. 6 



2. Seligeria calcarea [Dickson] Bryologia Europaea 

 Densely gregarious, dull, dark green: stems short, less than 1 mm, simple; 

 leaves short, less than 1 mm, the lower lanceolate, the upper from an oblong 

 concave base abruptly narrowed to a shorter, linear, obtuse or sub-obtuse, 

 entire subulation; costa rather flat, indistinct below, above obscure and filling 

 the whole apex; basal leaf-cells shortly rectangular, pellucid, thin-walled, above 

 becoming irregularly quadrate to rounded or hexagonal, obscure, chlorophyllose, 

 incrassate: seta straight, erect; capsule erect, oval-pyriform, turbinate when dry 

 and empty, brownish; peristome-teeth 16, broadly lanceolate, rather densely 

 articulate, flat, entire, smooth, orange-pellucid, reflexed when dry; lid subulate- 

 rostrate but considerably shorter than the urn; spores mature in spring or 

 early summer. 



On calcareous or chalky rocks. Europe and, in North America, tn On- 

 tario, Lake Winnipeg, New York, and Ohio. Rare. 



In our region reported but once. Huntington Co.: Warrior's Ridge. Porter. 

 (Porter's Catalogue). 



7. Dicranella Schimper 



Dioicous, rarely pseudautoicous : mainly small, gregarious, or cespitose, 

 terrestrial: stem erect, thickly foliate, sparsely radiculose; leaves somewhat 

 lustrous, from a sheathing base abruptly subulate and squarrose-spreading, or 

 from a non-sheathing base gradually linear to subulate and stiffly erect to 

 falcate-secund, mostly with plane edges; costa strong; m.ostly percurrent, often 

 filling the acumen; leaf-cells elongate-rectangular to linear: seta erect; capsule 

 cernuous, unsymmetric, short, short-necked, often strumate, or erect and 

 symmetric; peristome-teeth usually present, mostly unequally subulately 2-3- 

 cleft, papillose above, at the extreme base united to form more or less of a 

 basal membrane, exteriorly finely vertically striate; operculum conic-rostrate or 

 obliquely long-rostrate, sometimes as long or even longer than the urn. 



A. large and cosmopolitan genus of about 60 species; about 30 species in 

 North America; at least 4 species in our region. 



Key to the Species 



A. Costa wide and flat and not well-defined at base; peristome weakly papillose; annu- 



lus often differentiated B 



A. Costa narrower and fairly well defined at base; jieristome distinctly striate-papillose; 



annulus not differentiated D 



B. Seta red (D. aispa [Ehrh.} Schimper) 



B. Seta yellowish C 



D. Capsules erect and symmetric 1. D. Fitzgeraldl 



C, Capsules more or less cernuous 2. D. heteromalla 



D. Leaves squarrose, with wide clasping base (D. Schreberi [Swartz] Schimper) 



D. Leaves not as above E 



E. Leaves squarrose, with wide clasping base (D. Schreberi [Swartz] Schimper) 



E. Leaves not as above B 



E. Capsule usually nodding 4. D. varia 



E. Capsule erect 3. D. rufescens 



