938 

 A FIRST LIST OF MOSSES FROM WESTERN INDIA. 



BY 



L. J. Sedgwick, i.c.s. 



During the last two years the writer has been sending to England 

 packets of specimens, which have in every case been indentified by 

 Mr. H. N. Dixon, f.l.s., the well known English Bryologist. Where 

 necessary the latter has consulted various continental authorities, es- 

 pecially Dr. Brotherus, and M. Cardot, and with the first two has 

 named some new species. There still remain some undetermined, 

 and apparently new, species sent from Mahableshwar in February 

 last, but they will be included, it is hoped, in a later list in this 

 journal. Besides the specimens collected by the writer there are 

 four gathered by Mr. R. M. Maxwell, i.c.s., in Kanara, a number of 

 specimens gathered by Lt.-Ool. K. R. Kirtikar, f.l.s., i.m.s. (retd.), 

 at various times during the last few years, and sent to the writer, 

 and a few gathered by Prof. Woodrow about 1895, and sent by 

 Col. Kirtikar with his own. 



Very little can be done in the way of identifying Indian mosses 

 in this country owing to the absence of literature, or type collections. 

 The only works dealing with Indian Bryology are (1) Mitten's Musci 

 Indise Orientalis, written in Latin and published by the Linnean 

 Society in 1859, (2) Thwaites and Mitten's Mosses of Ceylon, (3) Con- 

 tributions to the Bryological Flora of theN.-W. Himalayas by V. F. 

 Brotherus, in the Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fenica, Helsingfors, 

 1898, (4j Contributions to the Bryological Flora of S. India by the 

 same author, in Records of the Bot. Survey of India, Vol. I., No. 12, 

 Calcutta, 1899. The first two are quite out of date, but the last two 

 might prove of considerable use. The mosses from S. India described 

 by Brotherus were collected by Dr. Walker in Coorg and Ceylon, and 

 as Mr. Dixon says (in an article on the earlier gatherings of the present 

 writer in the J. of B. for May), the mosses sent so far " naturally 

 exhibit a close relationship with these (i.e., the Coorg mosses) as well 

 as with those of the Nilgiri Hills, and also, like them, indicate a 

 very promising bryological field of study." Those sent by Col. 

 Kirtikar as well as those representing the earlier collection of Prof. 

 Woodrow are mainly duplicates of specimens collected by the writer, 



