630 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Sphagnum of North America.* — A. Le Eoy Andrews publishes a 

 third article on North American species of Sphagnum, treating of 

 S. erythrocalyx and 8. mageUanicum, their anatomical characteristics and 

 affinities. He adds a phylogenetic table of the species of the section 

 Inophloea. 



Dicranella heteromalla. f — H. N. Dixon gives an account of a 

 remarkable form of Dicranella heteromalla with abnormal sporophores. 

 The capsules, instead of being elongate, brown, inclined and plicate, 

 and borne on long pale seta^, are short, small, deep reddish, erect and 

 symmetrical, smooth, wide-mouthed, and borne on very short red set». 

 They much resemble the fruit of D. varia, a view strengthened by the 

 deep purple peristome. But the supposition that the form is a hybrid 

 of D. heteromalla and D. varia failed to find any support, for the latter 

 of these species is entirely absent in the locality, near Hungerford, Wilts, 

 where the form occurred in abundance last May. The explanation of 

 the abnormaUty must be sought in conditions of climate ; and as the 

 hot weather of last April was too late to affect the development, we 

 must look farther back for the cause — namely, to the extreme heat and 

 drought of last summer, when the young setae were already up. 



Molendoa tenuinervis in America. | — I. Gyorffy gives a careful 

 description of the microscopic structure of specimens of 3folendoa 

 tenuinervis from Arctic America, illustrated with camera-lucida figures, 

 and elaborated by tables of comparative measurements. 



Barbula Fiorii.§ — J. Roll gives an account of Barbula Fiorii Vent., 

 a species first recorded from Modena in Italy, then from the Hartz 

 Mountains. This led Roll to institute a search for it near Erfurt in the 

 Thuringerwald. Though unsuccessful at first during a dry summer, he 

 was rewarded l)y discovering close sterile tufts of it on the upper 

 southern slopes of the Schwellenburg during the wet weather of January 

 1912. The p)lant closely reseml)les i?. Hornschuchii in habit ; and Roll 

 adds some remarks upon the mimicry shown by mosses which grow in 

 association. 



Oxyrrhynchium Swartzii.|l — Potier de la Varde describes a curious 

 new variety of Oxyrrhynchium Swartzii found on the walls of an old 

 fountain at Ploermel (Morbihan), in company with Fissidens julianus, 

 Thamnium alopecurum, Amblystegium riparium — mosses usual in such a 

 situation. The new moss (var. fluitans) is remarkable for its long 

 floating filaments of rather squarrose aspect. 



British Hepatics.lF — S. M. Macvicar publishes an illustrated hand- 

 book of British Hepatics. The number of species recognized is 274, 

 and these are grouped in 73 genera. The system of classification 



* Bryologist, xv. (1912) pp. 70-4. 

 t Journ. Bot., 1. (1912) pp. 306-8. 

 J Bryologist, xv. (1912) pp. 75-81 (1 pL). 

 § Hedwigia, lii. (1912) pp. 393-4. 

 i; Rev. Bryolog., xxxix. (1912) p. 74 (fig.). 



4 Student's Handbook of British Hepatics. Eastbourne, Sumfield; and London, 

 Wheldon and Co., 1912, xxiii and 463 pp. (274 figs.). 



