HYPNUM (bRACHYTHECIUM) SALEBROSUM AS A BRITISH MOSS. 305 



the base, 2-3 in. long, 1^-2 in. broad. Veins anastomosing 

 copiously in irregular areola, the main ones straight and distinct 

 three-quarters of the way from the midrib to the edge, the lower 

 ones spreading from the midrib at a right angle, the upper erecto- 

 X^atent. Sori not seen. Allied to P. linear e and superjiciale. 



HYPNUM (BRACHYTHECIUM) SALEBROSUM, Hoffm., 



AS A BEITISH MOSS. 



By Richard Spruce. 



In the September number of 'Grevillea' Mr. G. Davies 

 questions the genuineness of my Yorkshire specimens of Hyjmiim 

 salebrosiim, Hoffm., and of my Pyrenean ones of Hypnum {Ccnnpto- 

 thecium) aureiim, Lag. ; the former published in Wilson's ' Bryologia 

 Britannica ' (1855), the latter in the ' Transactions of the Bot. Soc. 

 of Edinburgh ' for 1849. If he should chance to visit my neigh- 

 bourhood, and will favour me with a call, he shall see the originals 

 of both, and decide for himself; or, if the British Museum be 

 more easily accessible to him, I beheve he will find there duplicates 

 of the same, with my autograph attached, in the herbarium of the 

 late Mr. Wilson. 



I found very little of the Hypnum aiireum, and all the plants 

 were purely female and sterile ; wherefore it could not possibly be* 

 the monoicous H. salebrosum, which is one of the most fruitful 

 mosses I know, and is never at any season without flowers of 

 both sexes, except, of course, when very young. Moreover, at 

 Paris I was able to examine an original siDecimen of H. aiireum, 

 gathered near Madrid by Lagasca himself, and to thus establish (to 

 my own satisfaction) its perfect identity with my moss. My 

 specimens were gathered on the ascent from Lac d'Oo to Lac 

 d'Espingo, somewhat nearer the latter, but still a good way below 

 the limit of the x^ine zone. It has since been found in a similar 

 site in the eastern Pyrenees ; and it grows and fruits abundantly 

 in pine-woods in Provence (fide Schimper, Robert et al.), nearly 

 two degrees of latitude to the iiorth of my station for it. Yet Mr. 

 Davies doubts the possibility of its occurring in the Pyrenees at 

 all, because it is what he calls " a purely southern plant!" It 

 grows also in the Isle of Sardmia, which is more nearly in 

 the latitude of Madiid ; and I have fine specimens gathered in the 

 Sierra Morena by Prof. Schimper. If Mr. Davies knows Madrid, 

 he must know also that the city itself is high enough above the 

 sea to be sometimes very cold in the winter and spring months ; 

 while the Sierra de Guadarrama, which overlooks it from the 

 north, and yields little to the Pyrenees in elevation, is at those 

 seasons often more glacial and wind beaten than Lake Espingo 

 itself. When in the Pyrenees I had given to me a small collection 

 of flowering-plants, recently made in the Guadarrama, some of 

 them as alpine as any that grow by Lake Es^jingo. 



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