168 ox A NEW MOSS FROM TASMANIA. 



obscure ; but as it has, as far as I know, not been described, it ought 

 to be called Pleurophascum granmglobum, Litidb., u. gen. & sp. 



The plants are not unlike Bome Meteor ia or Garovaglice, not tufted, 

 but loosely gregarious. The stem is about three centim. long, as 

 thick as a horsehair, nearly black and simple, the lower rhizomatous 

 part of it creeping and clothed with a rather dense felt of short 

 whitish threads, and very small, scalelike, adpressed and remote, 

 obtuse leaves, the upper part ascending and nearly leafless below, 

 densely clothed above with large patent- erect leaves. These leaves 

 resemble those of several Meteoria, or Lampurus Lagurus, as they are 

 oblong from a somewhat narrower and decurrent base, canaliculate and 

 not plicate, very concave or cucullate above, with entire slightly re- 

 curved margins ; the apex is obtuse and narrowed into a rather long, 

 flexuous, and in general hyaline hair-point of only a single cell ; they 

 show not the least trace of a nerve. The colour of the younger leaves 

 is yellow-green, that of the older brown-fulvous, and all are glossy ; 

 their consistence is rather thick and firm ; all the cells are everywhere 

 in only a single layer, large and quite smooth, much thickened and 

 porose in the connate walls, nearly filled up by drops, larger or 

 smaller, of a fatty oil ; the lower of them are rectangular, but no 

 angular ones, the upper thicker and rhombic. 



From a true axil, forming a true line of demarcation between the 

 small Bcalelike leaves and the upper larger ones, springs a peri- 

 chcetium, like that of a Jleteoriuni or Garovaglia, and composed of 

 numerous rather whitish hyaline and glossy bracts, all nerveless and 

 convolute, especially the two or three innermost, which are long, 

 sheathing, and not obtuse or apiculate like the rest, but hair-pointed ; 

 the areolation is a little larger and laxer than that of the leaves. The 

 vaginula is cylindrical, bearing some few sterile pistillidia and filiforjn 

 paraphyses. The seta is two or three centim. long, thick, straight, pale 

 yellow, and quite smooth. The theca (nut) is globular, distinctly 

 depressed at both ends, very similar in form to the common Bear- 

 berry, and nearly of the same size, from four to six millim. in diameter, 

 pale yellow, smooth and glossy, without the least trace of a lid, but 

 at the top showing a short, erect, conical and blunt point; its sub- 

 stance is firm, but transparent, so that the comparatively very small 

 sporangium is readily conspicuous by its darker yellow colour ; the 

 space between the wall of the nut and the spore-sac is excessively 

 large, as if the fruit were much inflated, and is traversed by numerous 

 branched and anastomosing cell-threads. The spores are small, yellow, 

 quite smooth, elliptical and distinctly curved, like common beans'in 

 miniature. 



The veil and male organs may be present in the tuft, but have not 

 yet been observed in the short time 1 have been in possession of it. 



At present I must confine myself to this short notice, but ere long 

 I intend to publish a complete description, accompanied by good 

 figures and a full examination of the affinity of this most curious 

 Moss. 



Ecce unum sed leonem ! 

 Helsingfors, April 24, 1875. 



