127 



striatum, the latter fruiting commonly. Hylocomium triquetrum I have also 

 found in fruit once or twice ; while cold half-exposed woody banks are the places 

 where, if anywhere, you will find Hypnuin purum and Hi/locomium squan-osum 

 in fruit. Of the latter I once found more than seventy capsules in such a situa- 

 tion at Sellack. Hylocomium splendens also, and Thuidium tamariscinum are 

 found sparingly fruiting in our county ; for example, in the Hope Mansel and 

 Carey woods. One of the most beautiful of all the wood denizens— a summer moss 

 this, not a winter moss — is Polytrichum formosum, which is far more common in 

 South Herefordshire than the moorland Polytrichum commune. Bryum roseum, 

 another fine wood species, is decidedly rare with us. I have found it, barren of 

 course, in Carey woods sparingly. Some of the rarer wood mosses found with us 

 are Campylopus fragilis (Doward and Hope Mansel woods), Entosthodon ericc- 

 torum on the Great Doward ; Bryum erythrocarpum, common on the cinder 

 heaps, &c., of the Doward woods ; Pterygophyllum lucens found in plenty and in 

 fine fruit in the wooded glen above Llandogo, Monmouthshire; and last, not least, 

 Didymodon flexifolius, which occurs on stones in the same spot — a curious posi- 

 tion for a moss of the moorlands. Hylocomium loreum, one of the finest of our 

 Hypnoid mosses, might be reckoned a sub- Alpine wood moss. It is common enough 

 on the Harechurch bank, Hope Mansel, but not fruiting. In the Elan valley, 

 near Rhayader, I have seen it very much finer and in fruit ; and Mr. Crouch has 

 shown me fruiting specimens from Lyonshall. We will not leave the Wood 

 mosses without mentioning one which certainly ought to be found in our woods — 

 Hylocomium brevirostre. It may possibly have been missed, from its great simi- 

 larity to the common Eurhynchium striatum, from which it dififers in the villose, 

 not naked stems. 



Lane and hedge banks abound in species peculiar to themselves. The 

 crumbling, half rocky, half earthy sides of those old hollow lanes which fortu- 

 nately still abound in many parts of Herefordshire, are spots which never come 

 amiss to the bryologist during the winter and early spring months — or indeed at 

 any time of year, for the banks of a deep Herefordshire lane retain the dampness 

 necessary for moss vegetation even through the summer months, during which the 

 luxuriant growth of grass and herbage in the economy of nature forms a curtain to 

 protect the humbler moss tribes which delight in damp, from the action of the sun. 

 Draw aside this curtain and look carefully into damp corners, and you wdll still 

 find your winter friends green and flourishing. And there is nothing pleasanter 

 than to hail your old friends of the hedge banks putting themselves out again to 

 notice in the autumn and beginning of winter, as the higher vegetation begins to 

 shrink away, evidently enjoying the return of cool and damp. Here some of the 

 most common of the whole tribe — Weissia viridula, the Dicranellce, varia, hetero- 

 malla, and if a wood be near, rufescens, the common Fissidentes, taxifolius, and 

 hryoides, Phascum cuspidatum, and Pottia lanceolata, with Barbula suhulata, 

 and those ubiquitous Hypnoids Brachythecium rutabulum and velutinum, Eu- 

 rhynchium Swartzii, and prcelongum, Amblystegium serpens, and many others, form 

 intricate carpets. These are given as examples among hosts of others, more or 

 less common, but too numerous to mention. Nor is it impossible that some 



