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GENERAL. 



Jan. 1st, 1874. The first evening Meeting of the Society was 

 held on New Year's Day, at the Bristol Museum and Library, 

 at 8 p.m. 



The Secretary, Mr. Leipner, gave a lecture on " Mosses and 

 their Allies." It was pointed out that winter, when flowering 

 plants are scarce, is just the time for finding these humbler plants 

 in their most interesting condition. Mosses, as understood in 

 English, contain three distinct types of plants : (i.) True Mosses, 

 or Musci ; (ii.) Bog-Mosses, or Sphagnacece ; (iii.) Liver-worts, 

 or Hepaticoe. The lecturer remarked that he has gathered forty 

 species of mosses in fruit in a single afternoon in Leigh "W"oods, 

 and, as mentioned in a former number of the " Proceedings," had 

 catalogued over 200 from there. The second tribe are found in 

 bogs, and perhaps the Moors round Glastonbury were the nearest 

 locality for them. The third group, Liver-worts, were found 

 pretty much everywhere on damp walls, trees, &c. They differ 

 from the mosses in their fruit ; the structure of the fruit in both 

 tribes was explained, — a moss-capule, with its lid and teeth, on 

 the one hand, and the fruit of Marchantia polymorpha on the 

 other hand. 



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