NOTES ON MOSSES. 131 
NODES. ON. MOSSES. 
By WILLIAM STANLEY. 
HOSE who have become interested in Mosses from the previous 
notes appearing monthly since July last will doubtless have 
felt a disadvantage in the system pursued when wishful to refer to 
any particular species ; this disadvantage is considerably increased 
when we remember that at least one-sixth of the British Mosses 
either do not fruit in the United Kingdom, or that the production 
of capsules and spores is very doubtful. The remaining species as 
yet not referred to will, therefore, be taken in the order of their 
classification, and I would here mention that the London Catalogue 
of British Mosses and Hepatics, published by D. Bogue, price 
gd., will be found extremely useful for the purpose of an index, 
while it also shows the comparative rarity or frequency of each 
species by means of a census indicating its distribution through 
the eighteen Watsonian provinces of Great Britain. 
The family Andrezeaceze, named by Ehrhart in honour of his 
friend J. G. R. Andrez, an apothecary and naturalist of Hanover, 
has only one genus Andreza, consisting of eight species according to 
the London Catalogue; but Dr. Braithwaite, in his recently pub- 
lished monograph of this family, gives five species only, two having 
leaves nerveless, and three with leaves strongly nerved. A/festris 
is considered a variety of petrophila and grimsulana or frigida 
and falcata varieties of Rothiz, The Andrezacez are entirely con- 
fined to granite or slate rocks and boulders, and to mountains, stony 
regions, or the high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic zones, 
and this, no doubt, accounts for the great uniformity in their 
structure; their habit and valvular bursting of the capsule 
resembling that of the Jungermannia amongst which they were 
placed by the older authors. 
They are acrocarpous Mosses of a reddish-brown or black 
colour, growing in small dense fragile tufts. Capsule ovate-oblong 
and. sessile on the elongated sheath (vaginula) at the base of the 
fruit stalk, splitting into four rarely six or eight valves united at base, 
and also at the apex by the adherent lid, mitriform, torn irregularly. 
Male inflorescence gemmiforme. Stems rigid or slender, forked, 
or with the leaves collected in small bundles on short branches 
(fasciculate). Leaves in five or eight ranks, patent, secund, smooth, 
or papillose, nerved or nerveless ; ovate-lanceolate or subulate; the 
cells minute and thickened, rectangular at base, dotted or angular 
above. 
* Leaves nerveless. 
A, petrophila, the rock Andrea, with its beautiful brown or black 
