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one of the curly -leaved Ulotas has been detected with us. This seems especially 

 true with the Oak, the bole of which often rises, in Herefordshire, perfectly clean 

 of every moss, except perhaps a dash of Hypnum cupressiforme ; in other counties, 

 e.g., Oxfordshire, I am informed it is the main seat of Orthotricha. About Ross, 

 that honour is to be given to the Lombardy Poplar, or perhaps the Apple. Why 

 this should be so, I do not know. Equally curious is the preference shown for 

 tree or stone by some closely-aUied mosses. For instance, Barbida ruralis (or 

 intermedia, as I believe most of it is about us) devotes itself to stone walls and 

 tiled or thatched roofs ; its near congener, Icevipila, so like as hardly to be dis- 

 criminated by the naked eye, is equally partial to trees, and you never find them 

 changing places — if the material is stone, it is certain to be the one, if living tree, 

 it is equally sure to be the other species. 



Mud affords one or two peculiar species — Pleuridivm nitiduvi, Phys- 

 comitrella patens, and Physcomitrium pyriforme. Bare earth supports the 

 Pottias, minutida, truncata, and lanceolata. Barhula cavifolia, a plant of 

 mud-capped oolite walls, I once found, on bare clay, on the borders of the 

 Forest of Dean. Bare fields, in winter, yield Funaria fasciculans, and Hypnum 

 chrysophyllum, in plenty. Rivers and pools have one or two species peculiar 

 to themselves ; Hypnum aduncum (Kneiffii Bry. Brit.), occupies a pool at Aliens- 

 more, and was formerly found in the Vallets Wood, Pembridge ; Cindidotus 

 fontinaloides, and Fontiiudis aittipjyretica are common, the latter once in fruit, in a 

 pool at King's Capel. Worth notice is the FontinaHs squamosa, which occurs in 

 the Wye in Herefordshire. This is quite a plant of mountain streamlets, and out 

 of place in our county. But it is abundant in the Wye, three miles above Here- 

 ford, clothing all the stones in the shallow stream below Breinton Camp. At 

 Sellack, it exists ; but only, as far as I have found, in minute quantities. Is it 

 that it has got washed down in both in.stances from the upper regions of the river; 

 and, though still flourishing in the district above Hereford, twenty-eight miles 

 further down, is pining and perishing for want of its cool mountain water ? A few 

 systematic observations at chosen stations along the Wye, would settle this 

 question. 



The river-side, with its rocks and stumps, supports a moss vegetation in 

 many respects quite peculiar to itself. This is more especially the case in the 

 lower parts of the courses of the Wye and Monnow, where you could, with some 

 accuracy, tell the point to which the average of the winter floods attains, by the 

 species of mosses growing on the stumps of the willows and alders. 1 have noticed 

 on the Monnow, the mud-loving Barbida Bribissoni rising to a certain point, with 

 its clean-feeding brother Icevipila coming down to meet it from above, and the 

 two joining at the point to which the winter floods usually attain ; while below 

 both, on the same stump, Orthoirichum rividare and Cindidotus would mark the 

 region which is covered by the water itself for six months in the year. Nor is 

 this sharp line of demarcation to be wondered at, considering that a single one of 

 our winter floods upon the Wye, in the Ross district, will leave a coating, in still 

 places, of three inches in depth, and often more, of the softest and most greasy 



