Dr. Smith's Remarks on the Generic Characters of Mosses. 255 



Mnium, that it bears two different kinds of heads, or fructifica- 

 tion ; the one powdery and naked, that is, destitute of calyx and 

 capsule ; the other of the same capsular nature as in Bryum and 

 Hypnum, those great genera which, in the work of Dillenius, 

 swallow up almost all the rest of this natural order. He considers 

 this character as abundantly sufficient to distinguish Mnium from 

 all other mosses, and proceeds to inquire into the nature of these 

 different parts of fructification. He presumes the capsules to be, 

 as he believed of other mosses, antherce, and the powdery heads 

 to produce seeds, or at least what is analogous to them. We now 

 know that he mistook the male for the female, and vice versa ; 

 though his having called the supposed antherce by the name of 

 capsulce has concealed his mistake from common observation, 

 and thrown all the glare of his error on Linnaeus, who adopting 

 his hypothesis, at the same time corrected,, as he thought,, his 

 phraseology. We now resume the language though we discard 

 the ideas of Dillenius, calling his and Linnaeus's supposed antherce 

 by their proper name of capsulce. Nor, while we profit of the 

 brilliant physiological and botanical discoveries of Micheli and 

 Hedwig, do we find any reason to follow the former in his care- 

 less denomination of the part in question, which he calls capitu- 

 lum, nor to adopt the new word invented by the latter, without 

 any reason or advantage, sporangium. 



Dillenius describes eight supposed species of Mnium; for he has 

 referred to this genus every thing in which he found a powdery 

 head, even though he did not meet with the capsule. This has 

 led him into a great error. In his first, second, third, fourth and 

 eighth species he is indeed, as far as any one could at that time 

 be, correct; but bis remaining species are not even mosses at all. 

 The fifth and sixth are Jungermannia:, a mistake which Linnaeus 

 did not correct; and the seventh is, as the careful Micheli had 



already 



