THE MOSSES OF THE EAST RIDING. 
By J. J. MarsHAa.t. 
(Secretary of the Yorkshire Bryological Committee. ) 
(Read February 22nd, 1899.) 
HE flora of the East Riding has been greatly neglected, and 
the moss flora has shared in the neglect. Twenty years 
ago it was stated that ‘‘no writer had arisen to treat of its flora as 
that of the North Riding by Mr. Baker, or that of the West 
Riding by Messrs. Davis and Lee.” Happily that stain on the 
character of East Riding botanists will soon be wiped out, for we 
shortly hope to see issued from the press an up-to-date flora of 
the East Riding. So far back as 1690 the neighbouring county 
of Westmoreland had a moss record, a very small one it is true, 
yet the large Poly¢richum figured in Ray’s “Synopsis” published 
at that date was located in our sister county. 
More than a hundred years elapsed before Robert Teesdale, 
gardener at Castle Howard, published a list of East Riding 
mosses in the “Linnean Transactions” (1800). He was a 
botanical friend of Col. Machell of Beverley, and in ‘‘ Beverlac,” 
a history of Beverley, is included a list of plants which enumerates 
a few mosses which were noted in the Riding, more particularly 
those in the immediate neighbourhood of that ancient town, my 
native place. Yet there were records near Market Weighton, 
Cottingham, Houghton Moor, and other places. Some of these 
I have rediscovered and confirmed. Others, I fear, have dis- 
appeared before the plough, the drain, and perhaps the advance 
of the builder. One plant, Ze¢raplodon angustatus, was recorded 
in bogs near Cottingham on dung. I hope it may be there at 
the present day. 
Short and imperfect lists have been published also by the 
accomplished Dr. Spruce, of Coneysthorpe, in 1845, and by Henry 
Baines, in his ‘‘ Yorkshire Flora,” 1840. In 1878, Dr. Parsons of 
Goole prepared a list from all known sources, which was published 
in the “‘ Transactions” of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. It 
was a good list—176—though admittedly very incomplete, and 
must still be so considered, though twenty-seven have been added 
to it in recent years. Since this gentleman left Goole for Croydon, 
this division of our county, so far as bryology is concerned, has 
