56 On Bog Mosses. 



first, as being the most highly developed form, and this order will 

 1)6 followed here. The drawings have been made by the camera 

 lucida and Messrs. Beck's large instrument, 3-inch object-glass and 

 A eye-piece for leaves, §-iuch and B eye-piece for their cell-texture. 

 In the synonymy I have only quoted the more important w'orks, 

 with the hope of being less tedious to the general reader ; and in 

 the descriptions, the characters more essentially distinctive of the 

 species, are printed in italics, so as readily to catch the eye and save 

 repetition. 



Sphagnum Dill. 



Stems dichotomously fastigiate, erect, renewed by an annual 

 innovation at apex ; ramuli fascicled at base, flagelliform, partly 

 patulous, partly adpresso-reflexed ; the younger clavate, erect, 

 clustered in a dense capitulum at summit of stem. Cauline leaves 

 five ranked, erecto-incumbent or reflexed, soft ; ramuline leaves 

 very small at base of branches, thence gradually larger, toward 

 apex narrower and longer, acute, all nerveless, when dry extremely- 

 fragile, whitish. Flowers monoicous or dioicous ; the male strobili- 

 form on lateral ramuli, antheridia very numerous, solitary at the 

 side of each involucral leaf, on an elongated fihform pedicel, sub- 

 globose; female flowers forming long gemmules, lateral, many in 

 each capitulum, archegonia 1-5 in the same perigynium, with very 

 slender, much-branched paraphyses, internal perigynial leaves 

 very small, finally evolved to form the perichoetium and larger 

 than the external. Fruit solitary, up to maturity hidden in the 

 perichoetium, afterwards exserted on a receptacle, prolonged into 

 a pseudopodium. Capsule globose sessile on a discoid turbinate 

 vaginula with a bulb-like pedicel immersed in it ; solid, with nume- 

 rous stomata, chestnut-coloured or blackish ; operculum minute 

 hemispherical, mouth naked without any annulus or peristome ; 

 columella elevated, hemispheric, covered by the excavato-hemispheric 

 sporangium ; pericarpic membrane very thin, whitish, irregularly 

 torn, adhering partly to the vaginula, and partly to the capsule ; 

 spores sulphur-coloured or ferruginous, 



A. Cymbifolia, 



1. S. cynibifoUum Ehrh, 



B. Subsecunda. 



2. ^S', tenellum Ehrh. — 3, 8. ruhellum Wils. — 4. 8. neg- 

 lectum Angst. — 5. 8. suhsecundum N. von Es. 



C. Eigida. 



6. 8. Angstromii C. Hartm. — 7. 8. molle Sulvt. — 8. 8. 

 rigidum N. H. and S. 



