262 Britton : Hkyoi.ogical notes 



to it by various authors show this to be the most marked charac- 

 teristic of the species. The same habit is described by Correns 

 in Leucodon sciuroides. He states that it is dioicous and seldom 

 fruits and is propagated by brittle branchlets, a habit of tree- 

 growing species. The young stems are unbranched and simple, 

 but later they have short, small-leaved lateral branches which are 

 brittle and fugacious ! 



The fruit has not been carefully described. This is a transla- 

 tion of what Miiller says of it : 



" Pericliaetium long -exserted, very narrow, pale; leaves long lanceolate-acumi- 

 nate, convolute, long-reticulate ; capsule on a long slender yellow pedicel, erect, ovate, 

 brownish. 



" Very common throughout the Antilles and the neighboring borders of Venezuela, 

 but very rarely fertile, first collected by Bertero in San Domingo. 



" A very beautiful and very distinct species. Fruit of A r . longise/a." 



We have this species from five stations near Miami, Florida, 

 where it has been collected by Garber and by Small ; also at Lake 

 Harris, /. D. Smith, 1879. It was distributed from Cuba, Clias. 

 Wright 68 ; Porto Rico, Sintems 33, Heller 5 j8 and 820, 0. F. 

 Cook 1031 ; Jamaica, Underwood 2981 and 2013, and Maxon 8^3. 

 Also from Mexico, near Cordova, C. Mohr, 1857 and Pringle 2146. 



In searching through the literature to see whether this species 

 had previously been recorded from the United States, I found in 

 Kindberg's European and North American Bryimc that he includes 

 Alsia abietina under Leptodon with L. Smitliii, the type of the 

 genus ; that he separates Leptodon trichomitrion under Forsstroemia 

 Lindberg, including five North American species ; that he places 

 under Alsia, A. longipcs and A. circinnata (Brid.) ; and transfers 

 Alsia calif ornica, the type species of this genus, to Antitrichia 

 and rechristens it Antitrichia pseudo-calif ornica, because there was 

 already an Antitrichia calif ornica Sull. He transfers this last species 

 to a new genus and calls it Macouniella calif ornica Kindb. There 

 are five distinct propositions here which will be taken up separately. 



There is no question that Leptodon Smithii resembles Alsia 

 abietina Sull. in its circinate habit, but it is a very superficial resem- 

 blance, which the leaf-characters at once dispel ! There is a much 

 greater resemblance to Pterobryum densum Hsch. in the shape, 

 serration and venation of the leaves ; but the prominent spinose 



