'_>'.>'_> n, AN I' l-ll- K OK \I, AI'.AM \. 



Td till' Arctic rciiioii cxttMid 2- si>«'cics, of wliicli I lie Inllow iii«: ;ii'c 

 Noitli Ameiican : 



.S/»Ari<//M/;;i iinhrirnlKiii . I'oliltridium <iipillan\ 



SjihiKjinim ciispidiiiuni lotrriitunnii . CUmaciiiiii amerivaiuini. 



Sphaijunm papiUoHiim. llrtirhi/llicciiiin oxijrhuhin. 



Sphaijinim mvdium. liaphUloateiiuim rccunanii. 



The rest of the species are widely distiihiiled in thi' loolei- rejiioiis of 

 the Old World. 



Of tiaiiscoiitiiK'iital species which on the west coast ranj^e from 

 California to British Columbia .il occur in Alabama, of which only the 

 following are confined to this continent: 



Jh-acliiithcciuin oxyrladon. Kurhynvhium liians. 



('aitipi/Hum hispidithan. Iiaphidostegium recurvans. 



The others are almost all cosmopolitan wanderers throughout the 

 cooler temperate region of the Northern Hemisphere, many of them 

 found in Europe. Alabama has 2(1 species in common with the latter 

 continent, mostly erratic in temperate zones of the globe. 



Of anomalous distribution Bracln/tliccium cnmpcstre is a striking 

 example, this species being known onlj^ from the White Mountains of 

 New England and the IJocky Mountain region from Colorado to British 

 Columbia. 



REGIONAL DISTRIBT'TION. 



In no other part of the State are mosses found in greater variety and 

 abundance than in the section of the mountain region which embraces 

 the Warrior table-land and the southern spurs of the Cumberland 

 ^lountains abutting upon the Tennessee Valley. The manifold differ- 

 ences in the topography and geology of this section of the State give 

 rise to a diversity in conditions of climate, exposure, and soil which 

 alilbrd the peculiar habitat to which each species tinds itself best 

 adapted, and to which it clings more tenaciously than most plants of a 

 higher order; for, as Professor Lesquereux, the close student of the 

 moss world, ai>tly remarks, these humble and apparently useless beings 

 have their geological and lithological preferences far better marked 

 than any other kind of vegetable. 



The species prevailing in the northern part of the State at an eleva- 

 tion exceeding 1,500 feet are mostly the same as found in the Middle 

 and Northeastern States. On the lower terraces and in the valleys 

 Southern forms intermingle with those of higher latitudes. For 

 example, at the falls of Black Creek near (ladsden, 1,000 feet altitude, 

 the Northern Fissiflens adiantoides is associated with the tropical Fissi- 

 dens polifpodioideii, and on the Cumberland table land in Jackson and 

 Morgan counties the Southern Sphagmim mdcrojihyUuni, S. eycloj>lii/liu)n, 

 and S. moUe mueUcri, with »S. recurruin vars. and 8. vuspidatum torrey- 



