134 



sedecini-dentato: dentibus (maturitate, ) erectis, vel 

 paululum reflexis, acuminatis, basi latiusculis, pallidis, 

 obscure transversim striatis atque linea media longitu- 

 dinali notatis. Operculum basi planiusculum, rubruni, 

 rostro longo recto flavescente. 



Few mosses have been involved in greater obscurity than 

 the present, partly perhaps owing to Hedwig's incomplete and 

 very unsatisfactory figure, and partly owing to my having re- 

 ceived from the late excellent Swarlz a plant for the Encalypta 

 crispata of Hedwig, which I have stated in the Addendum to 

 the first edition of the Muscologia Britannica to be the same 

 as Trichostomum polyphyllmn^ and whicli Dr. Greville and 

 myself afterwards published in a Memoir on the Orthotri- 

 choid plants, in Brewster's Journal, as a doubtful species of 

 Orthotrichum. Bridel, in his Bryologia Universalis, has in- 

 deed very much cleared up these difficulties by his excellent 

 description and observations : but still a good figure was 

 wanting to exhibit the character in the clearest light. 



I felt, then, peculiar pleasure in receiving, in a packet of 

 mosses from M. Mund, gathered at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 specimens of this plant, and from these I have no hesitation 

 in publishing it as an undoubted species of Grimmia, and 

 coming so near to Mr. Drummond's Gr. Hookeri, of his 

 Musci Americani, (No. 61,) that I should not be surprised 

 if future observations should prove them to be the same. 

 If such be the case, Grimmia crispata inhabits stones at the 

 Falls of Niagara, (though rarely,) as well as the Cape of 

 Good Flope. In habit it approaches the Glyphomitryon 

 Daviesii, and small specimens of Trichostomum poly phyllum. 

 It brings the Grimmice, too, very near the OrtJiotrichoid 

 family, especially in the structure of the calyptra. The sul- 

 cated and lacerated base of this calyptra seems to constitute 

 the only character of Bridel's genus Brachy podium; a name 

 (taken from the shortness of the seta,) which it scarcely 

 merits. In this respect it is surely liable to variation. 

 Bridel describes the seta as a little longer than the perichae- 

 tial leaves ; Schwaegrichen as being twice as long. 



