492 Miscellaneous CorUribiUioiis and 



presented to the Herbarium, were shown by Mr E. M. Holmes, who 

 sent the following notes regarding them : — 



1. Tortala miicronata, Lindb. — The fruit of this species is ex- 

 tremely local, and I have found it only on the roots of trees by the 

 river side at Leatherhead in Surrey, and Penshurst in Kent. "When 

 growing it bears a considerable resemblance, in a wet state, to 

 luxuriant specimens of Tortula unrjuicuJata, but may easily be dis- 

 tinguished in the barren state from that moss by the matted red 

 roots, which cause the tufts to cohere. Although Dr Braithwaite 

 gives as its habitat " at roots of old trees by rivers," I have found 

 it in abundance on clay slate rocks near Plymouth, in places where 

 the moisture of a field drains down through the slate. The present 

 specimen was growing in tufts on a limestone wall where a garden 

 drains through the wall into the road outside. I have, however, never 

 seen it in fruit on a wall, though I have watched the same place for 

 years. It fruits on palings, or roots of trees subjected to flooding 

 after heavy rains. In such places it grows in continuous masses. 



2. Xote on Tortula nitida, Lindb. — I first found this moss about 

 twenty years ago on dry limestone walls at Plymouth, where it 

 grows abundantly, but is never found in fruit, I sent specimens to 

 the late Mr George Hunt of ISIanchester, who regarded it as a 

 variety of TricTiostomum mutablle ; but feeling sure from the mode 

 of groAvth of the plant, in isolated tufts on drystone walls, that it 

 could not be that species, and noticing moreover that the leaf tips 

 were almost invariably broken, only the very youngest being perfect, 

 and that the leaf had a difi'erent shape and cell structure from T, 

 mutahile, I sent it to Mr Mitten, who described it in the Journal 

 of Botany as a new species, under the name of Trichostomum 

 diffradura, April 1, 1868, p. 97. Although he had specimens 

 previously collected by Borrer and Thwaites, they had remained un- 

 named until I called his attention to the plant. Subsequently, 

 Lindberg saw Mitten's species (probably specimens collected by me 

 and sent to Dr Braithwaite, who was subsequently visited by Lind- 

 berg), and pointed out that it was identical with a species previously 

 described by himself under the name of Tortula nitida^ from the 

 shining appearance of the nerve at the back of the leaf when the 

 moss is dry. Hence Dr Lindberg's name holds good. Lately it has 

 been found on the Continent in fruit, which will, I believe, be 

 figured in the next part of Dr Braithwaite's Brit. Moss Flora. The 

 most northerly point at which I have foimd Torrtula nitida is 

 Dovedale, in Derbyshire, although it may occur on limestone 

 further north. I have seen it in abundance at Plymouth, Torquay, 

 and Lynton, in Devon — in fact, wherever there are dry-stone walls 

 of limestone. It is also recorded from Clifton, near BristoL 



