No. XIV. BOTANY. 313 



MOSSES AND JUNGEBMANNIJU. 



By W. Mitten, A.L.S. 



A small collection of Mosses and Jungermannias, made by the 

 naturalists attached to the late Polar Expedition, was placed 

 in my hands for examination. A portion of this collection 

 was made at some of the North Greenland ports, where 

 the ships touched on their way north ; but this enumeration 

 is confined to the specimens brought back from Smith Sound, 

 and the shores of the Polar Basin, or in other words, from 

 an area lying between the seventy-eighth and eighty-third 

 parallels of north latitude. Captain Feilden's collection con- 

 sists of twenty-two species of mosses. 



Distichium inclinatum, Sw. — Floeberg Beach, lat. 82° 

 27' N. ; with young fruit. This moss is seldom wanting in 

 collections made in the Arctic regions, and although, in an 

 exceptional case, it is found on the sea shore in North Britain, 

 near Dundee, it is throughout Europe and North America a 

 Subalpine and Alpine species. In North Africa it is found 

 on the Abyssinian mountains, and in Thibet it ascends to 

 the elevation of 18,700 feet on the top of Hera La ; but it has 

 not been recorded from any localities south of the equator. In 

 this respect it differs from its congener, D. capillaceum, also 

 commonly found amongst Arctic mosses, and which ascends 

 to equal elevation in India, and to 14,000 feet on the Andes. 

 But it is also found in mountains of much less elevation than 

 that which would appear to be required by D. inclinatum ; 

 and it is probably generally distributed, for it occurs on the 

 Cameroons mountain in equatorial Africa, and is found in 

 New Zealand. 



Dicranoweisia crispula, Hedw. — Payer Harbour, lat. 

 78° 42' N. ; a tall state not in fruit. Like the Distichium, 

 this moss perfects its fruit in Arctic regions ; completely 

 fruited specimens were gathered by Parry in Spitsbergen, 

 and others in Davis Straits by Mr. Taylor. In Europe and 



