COUNTY LISTS OF MOSSES 263 



Magazine, xxxv, pp. 587-590 (December, 1908). The following 

 catalogue contains about forty new records, including a Cornish 

 variety new to Britain, and I hope will be of use to future 

 compilers of county moss floras, c.fr. = With fruit. " = New 

 vice-county record. 



Berkshiee Mosses (c. 22). 



The list below includes mosses that were observed growing 

 near Hungerford and Newbury ; my thanks are due to Messrs. 

 A. B. Jackson (J.) and F. Comyns (C.) for localities in the vicinity 

 of the latter town. The discovery of the isolated Grimmia tricho- 

 phylla, G. decijneJis, G. leucophda, Hedivigia ciliata and Ortho- 

 trichum rupestre, very much strangers in a strange land, on the 

 sarsen stones at Ashdown Park, near Lambourn, is noteworthy ; 

 here the moss flora seems to be a replica of that of the Marl- 

 borough Greywethers in Wiltshire, which lie about twelve miles 

 to the south-west. The -above mosses and Polytrichum juni- 

 perinum, Dicranoioeisia cirrata, Dicranum scoparium, Grimmia 

 apocaipa, G. piulvinata, Bryum capillare, Hypnum cupressiforme, 

 etc., grow at Ashdowm Park in very much the same proportions 

 and condition as they occur on the Marlborough Sarsens. I have 

 not noticed Grimmia subsquarrosa, Rhacomitrium heterostichum 

 var. alojjecurum, Ulota Hutchinsice. and Pterogonium gracile, 

 which are found near Marlborough, but these mosses may be 

 discovered. Mr. Dixon's remarks in the preface to " The Moss 

 Mora " above mentioned are very apposite here and I quote them 

 freely : " These boulders, composed of almost pure siliceous sand- 

 stone, lying high and dry on the slopes and bottoms of the chalk 

 downs, would hardly he expected to furnish a rich moss-flora, and 

 indeed a sarsen stone might be pardoned if it afforded the bryolo- 

 gist no better sport than its proverbial rollijig namesake. In 

 very few instances, indeed, can the mosses be said to flourish, 

 and this only in the case of rigidly saxicolous species. What 

 constitutes the interest of this flora is its specialised character, 

 which corresponds in a remarkable way with the isolated nature 

 of the boulders on which it occurs. Six at least of the species 

 observed, it may be confidently asserted, would not occur else- 

 where in the county except on these stones, and this may very 

 likely apply to several others. Grimmia dccipiens, for example, 

 occurs in Cornwall and North and South Devon, but nowhere 

 else nearer than West Sussex on the east and Herefordshire on 

 the north. Grimmia leucophcea has an almost similar distribu- 

 tion, but is still more rare, and occurs only in South, not in North 

 Devon ; while that of G. trichoi^hylla and Hedivigia ciliata is 

 almost precisely analogous. Ortliotrichum rupestre, again, is only 

 known, I believe, in the South of England from single stations in 

 South Devon, South Wilts (probably equally on sarsen stones), 

 and East Sussex. These and most of the other rupestral species 

 noted are almost exclusively silica-loving or calcifuge in their 

 distribution. . . . The above species then must be considered 

 somewhat as intruders into the flora of the district, wdiere they 



