330 THE MOSSES OF THK UPPER DOVEY. 



This is a stemless plant, which can be propagated by offshoots 

 from the base. The leaves are dark green above, ornamented when 

 young with white markings ; beneath they are of a rich purple. 

 The petioles are covered with a short brown pubescence. From the 

 axil of a leaf appears a stem bearing a large purplish spathe, which 

 soon opens, disclosing the inflorescence. The flowers are unisexual, 

 the females borne at the base on a short branched cyme remain in 

 close proximity to the persistent spathe. The males are arranged in 

 a short branched panicle at some distance above the females ; they 

 are very much more numerous and smaller. The flowers open 

 singly on each branch of the panicle, and are rather fugacious, as 

 is usual in the Order. The sepals are rosy, the petals much narrower 

 and white. The stamens bear tufts of yellow hairs on the filaments; 

 they seem to be very similar in both sexes, but the females appear 

 to produce no pollen. In the male flowers the pistil is quite absent ; 

 I could find no rudiment of it. Though I fertilized several flowers, 

 they did not set fruit, but on one occasion the ovary so far developed 

 as to assume the form of an angled oblong capsule. 



The affinity of the plant is with the monotypic Strcptolirion, a 

 native of India, from which it is distinguished at once by habit, 

 that plant being a climber, and having the flowers always bisexual 

 and similar. 



Description of Plate 360. — Fig. 1. Whole plant (half nat. size). 2. Panicle 

 (nat. size). 3. Male flower. 4,5. Female flowers. 6. Stanienof female flower. 

 7. Stamen of male flower. 8. Sterile anther of female flower (front view). 

 9. Hairs of sterile stamen. 10. Ovary. Figs. 3-10 variously enlarged. 



THE MOSSES OF THE UPPER DOVEY. 

 By May Eoberts. 



The following is a list of the Mosses gathered in the watershed 

 of the Upper Dovey, in the county of Merioneth. The region 

 examined is bounded below by the confluence of the Cowarch 

 stream at Aber Cowarch, a village about a mile north of Dinas 

 Mawddwy, and 319 ft. above sea-level. It ranges upwards to the 

 high lands which rise steeply on either side to an altitude of 1500 

 to 2000 ft., and culminates in the summit of Aran Mawddwy, at an 

 elevation of 2970 ft. The chief gathering grounds were the bogs 

 on the moors, and the "nants" which descend from these to the 

 main valley. 



The central mass and summit of Aran Mawddwy consists of 

 porphyry and volcanic ash, and the Dovey has its source in a small 

 lake at the foot of the sheer precipice which forms the eastern face 

 of the mountain ; with this exception, the geological formation of 

 the district belongs entirely to the Bala Beds, which here consist of 

 shales and flags. The region is traversed obliquely in a north- 

 easterly direction by a thin band of Bala limestone. The Mosses 

 were gathered at Easter and Whitsuntide, and in the months of 

 August and September. 



