Jennings: Manual of Mosses— 20. Buxbaumiaceae 155 



about 2 cm long, erect; capsule inclined to cernuous, oblong, when dry and 

 empty unsymmetric, strongly curved, and somewhat wrinkled and tapering 

 gradually from the wide mouth to the seta; lid rounded and apiculate; annulus 

 revoluble, pluriseriate; peristome double, the teeth 16, lance-linear, yellowish- 

 pellucid, trabeculate on inner side, articulate and with a divisural on outer 

 surface, inner peristome with high basal membrane and 64 filiform cilia united 

 into groups of four each, opposite to and about as long as teeth; calyptra 

 cucullate; spores smoothish, mature usually in May. 



In shade on moist banks, or bases of trees, mostly in calcareous districts; 

 Europe, and, in North America, from Newfoundland to Virginia, Kentucky, 

 and Missouri. 



McKean Co.: Riverside swamp, ten .miles north of Bradford, on base of old elm, 

 August 19, 1896. D.A.B. Sterile (figured). Washington Co.: Bank of Buffalo 

 Creek, Taylorstown, May 18, 1895. Linn &C Simonton. 



Family 20. Buxbaumiaceae 



Autoicour or dioicous: perennial, low, gregarious to laxly cespitose, dark 

 green, finally brownish: protonema more or less persistent; stem without cen- 

 tral strand, mostly very short, erect, thickly foliate to almost leafless: seta 

 ranging from almost none up to 5-20 cm long, erect; capsule proportionally 

 large, sub-erect to inclined, often finally more or less horizontal, dorsiventrally 

 unsymmetric, flattened above, ovate to oblong or ovate-conic, narrowed to a 

 very small mouth; annulate; peristome double or, apparently, single, the inner 

 consisting of a membraneous plaited cone with an apical opening, the teeth 

 originating from one to four concentric rows of cells, faintly barred; operculum 

 conic, glabrous, smooth; spores very small. 



A very small and rather primitive family of mosses, growing on earth or 

 decayed wood. Theriota, in Korea, and the following two genera: 



Key to the Genera 



A. Seta almost none; capsule immersed in the fringing bristles of the penchaetial leaves 



I. Diphyscium 



A. Seta 5-20 cm long, thick, red or reddish-brown; leaves none at the time of ripening 



2. Buxbaumia 



1. Diphyscium [Ehrhart] Mohr 



{Webera Ehrhart, not Hedwig) 



Dioicous: perennial, mostly low and densely gregarious; protonema long- 

 persisting; stem without central strand, short, erect, radiculose, thickly-leaved, 

 simple, rarely longer and branched; leaves twisted or crispate when dry, 

 spreading when moist, the lower lingulate or elongate-spatulate, obtuse or 

 acuminate, entire; costa strong, without guides in distal part, ending below 

 apex; lamina 2- (3-) stratose; leaf-cells on both sides mamillate to smooth, 

 rounded to 4-6 sided, incrassate, often widened transversely, in the basal por- 

 tion uni-stratose, pellucid to hyaline, lax, elongate 4-6 sided with the transverse 

 walls incrassate, smooth; perichaetial leaves much larger, erect, whitish, mem- 

 branaceous, e'ongate, lanceolate to linear, the apex usually fringed and the 



