ON FISSIDENS 



349 



would suit 5"ours to a great extent and tlie sliort dorsal lamina is 

 also chai-acteristic of this form, but there the analogy seems to 

 end, as my plants of F. impar have rather short leaves, and it is 

 obviously related to F. hryoides.'' 



Mr. H. W. Dixon also seemed to consider the x^lf^nt to be 

 something new, and summed up. its peculiarities very clearly in 

 the following note : " Its characters are marked, as characters go 

 in Fissidens. The numerous innovations, not unfrequently with 

 terminal male flow^ers, the multijugous leaves, and the dorsal 

 lamina ceasing markedly above the base, seem to separate it from 

 all our species. I have carefully gone through Limpricht and 

 Eoth, but can find no European species that has these characters ; 

 F. Bamherrjeri seems most to approach it, but that is specially 

 distinguished by its synoicous flowers, and I have not found any 

 of those I have dissected to be synoicous." 



Finally Herr Georg Eoth of Laubach, to whom I forwarded 

 specimens, replied: "Your Fissidentes are certainly interesting. 

 The plant from Heald Brow is, as it were, a Fissidens minutulus 

 with the characters of F. tamarind if olius, in producing innova- 

 tions from the axils of the lower leaves, as well as on special 

 stems. If Euthe were still living he would no doubt have treated 

 this plant as a distinct species. One could name it as a variety 

 of F. minutulus with the inflorescence of F. tamarindifolius." 



Both Spruce (in Journ. Bot. 1880, 361) and Dixon (Hand. 

 Brit. Mosses, 130, 1904), no doubt rightly, regarded F. minutiilus 

 as only a variety of F. pusilhis, and there seem to be objections 

 either to assigning the Heald Brow plant to the var. madidus 

 or making it -a simple forma of that variety. In addition to the 

 divergences referred to above, there is a difference in the size of 

 the cells, in the length of the operculum, and in the habitat. I 

 have no first-hand knowledge of the Yiir. madidus, hut it would 

 appear to be a saxicole and aquatic, or at least subaquatic, plant. 

 Spruce describes it as occurring on " dripping stones " near the 

 Obelisk Bridge in Castle Howard Park. Dixon says "on dripping 

 rocks." The plant from Heald Brow is terricole, occurring on 

 loose sandy calcareous earth about the entrances to rabbit-holes, 

 in a very dry locality, Heald Brow being a dry hill on the scar- 

 limestone. In naming it after Mr. Albert Wilson of Garstang, 

 who has done so much to further our knowledge of Lancashire 

 plants, I am not only following a suggestion of Herr Eoth, but 

 also commemorating an ardent iDotanist and nature lover, to whom 

 I and many other Lancashire plant-lovers owe more than can be 

 expressed here. 



Fissidens pusillus var. Wilsoni (var. nov.). F. jmsillo var. 

 madido Spr. affine et F. tamarind if olio floribus simillimus sed foiii 

 longioribus angustioribusque. Planta e basi declinata assurgcns, 

 baud raro surculis sterilibus basi radicantibus instructa. Caulis 

 simplex vel scepe ramosus. Folia 6-15 juga, infima dissita minima, 

 superiora conferta, suprema valde longiora et angustiora, limbo 

 an gusto hyaline instructa ad apicem continue vel sub eo evanido ; 

 margine integerrimo vel summo apice plus minusve lenissimo 



