OOU ARTIFICIAL KEYS TO THE GENERA AND SPECIES OF MOSSES. 



I should therefore include plants like L, lucens with the small 

 species of Eulejeunea, of which Spruce has already grouped 

 together a number. 



Microlejeunea ulicina Tayl., 972, Dunkerron, Tayl. Taylor 

 wrote himself, in 1840, upon the packet containing this plant, " In 

 Juncjermannia minutissima desunt stipuhe " ; since that time there 

 has been a vexatious confusion in the synonymy of these two 

 plants, which need not be discussed here. (In Trans. Bot. Edin. i. 

 115, where his J. ulicina is published, Dr. Taylor says, " This 

 minute species . . . has been confounded with J. minutissima 

 Smith, to which it bears a very strong resemblance. It may be 

 distinguished by tbe presence of stipules," &c. — W. H. P.). 



M. albo-virens Tayl., 973, Auckland Isles, Hooker. What may 

 have induced Mitten (in Hooker's ' Handbook of the New Zealand 

 Flora' p. 533) to group together 1, L. rufescens, 2, implexicaulis, 

 3, mimosa, 4, albo-virens, and 5, primordialis, under the name 

 Lejeunea rufescens is to me incomprehensible ; all five plants are 

 not only five quite different species, but belong to three different 

 genera, viz., 1 and 2 to Euosmolejeunea, 3 to Strepsilejeunea, 4 and 

 5 to Microlejeunea. W. H. Pearson. 



Artificial Keys to the Genera and Species of Mosses recognised in 

 Lesquereux and James's ' Manual of the Mosses of North America. 1 

 By Charles R. Barnes, Prof, of Botany in the University of 

 Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 8vo., pp. 71. Price 50 cents. 



This pamphlet is re-published from vol. viii of the Transactions 

 of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 1890. 



In 1884. the ' Manual' by Lesquereux and James appeared. Two 

 years later, Mr. Barnes published a key to the genera which are 

 recognised in the ' Manual.' It was in such demand that the edition 

 soon became exhausted. In preparing the second edition the 

 author has increased the value of the work tenfold, by constructing 

 an analytic key to the species. And this part of the pamphlet, we 

 venture to think, will be found by the student to be of far greater 

 assistance than the key to the genera ; for the latter is based so 

 largely upon the characters of the capsule and its parts that, unless 

 the specimens bear fruit, the student is unable to apply the key for 

 the determination of the genus to which they belong. But when 

 once he has made certain of the genus, the student stands a very 

 good chance of making out the species ; for in this case the 

 characters of leaf and stem play an important part. 



We believe that Mr. Barnes would vastly enhance the value of 

 his work if he were to introduce a conspectus of tribes somewhat in 

 the style of that which Mr. Mitten has given us in his " Musci 

 Austro-Americani " (Journ. Linn. Soc. xii., 1869, pp. 9 et seqq.), 

 where the characters of stem and leaf are brought into prominence. 

 However, notwithstanding the objection urged above with reference 

 to the genera, we consider Mr. Barnes's keys to be an extremely 

 valuable addition to the bryological literature of North America, in 

 making good what is a very serious omission in Lesquereux and 

 James's ' Manual.' The author has brought his work up to date, 



