4 
Transactions of the 
toward apex, elongate-oblong, slightly acuminate, convolute, straw- 
coloured. Capsule globose dark brown. Spores ocbreous. 
Hab. In bogs among grass and carices, often with Sph. acuti- 
folium and tenellum. Fruit rare. June and July. Scandinavia, 
the Tyrol, England, Scotland, and Ireland. The specimen figured 
is from Eisley Moss, near Warrington, sent by the late Mr. Wilson. 
It is probable that this species is often passed over as Sph. acuti- 
folium, var. purpureum, to which it must be confessed it bears a 
very suspicious resemblance ; and if we overlook the dioicous 
position of the inflorescence, there is no other character that will 
absolutely separate them. Eussow indeed boldly unites them, and 
states, moreover, that S. acutifolium is sometimes dioicous : this I 
am unable to confirm ; and as we find the reproductive organs in all 
mosses very constant in position, we can only refer it to acutifolium 
from a Darwinian point of view by supposing that the male and 
female organs after a long struggle have succeeded in maintaining 
separate estabhshments. The other points of distinction from acu- 
tifolium are, “ the larger non-fibrose stem leaves and the broader 
branch leaves but I have shown that the presence or absence of 
threads in the hyaline cells may largely depend on conditions of 
growth, and is liable to variation in all species ; the greater width 
of the leaves must be admitted, but this cannot be regarded as 
more than a relative character. Its habit appears to be constantly 
more slender than S. acutifolium , and the leaves of the divergent 
branches have the cells in then’ upper half differing less in size from 
the lower than they do in S. acutifolium, the threads in rubellum 
being also entirely annular ; the pores are smaller than in acutifo- 
lium, and more equal in size at the base and apex of the leaf, and 
lastly, the catkins of male flowers are cuspidate in S. acutifolium, 
clavate and obtuse in S. rubellum. 
