Mr. R. Spruce on the Musci and Hepaticce of the Pyrenees. 105 



The most notable are Ceratodon purpureus and Funaria hygro- 

 metrica. Tortula ruralis is associated with these until in the in- 

 feralpine zone it meets and is supplanted by T. aciphylla, which 

 I have never seen away from the sheep-cotes and the huts of the 

 shepherds. At about the same height Hypnum rutahulum and 

 Bryum capillare give place to Hypnum plicatum and Leskea in- 

 curvata ; these last, along with Tortula aciphylla, indicate the 

 localities where the domesticated animals have taken up their 

 temporary sojourn, throughout all the higher mountains. 



The cryptogamic vegetation of the Pyrenees, taken in the mass, 

 has great general resemblance to that of our own islands, espe- 

 cially of Ireland, and the species common to both attain nearly 

 the same comparative altitude. Yet there are features in the 

 former which would forcibly strike a bryologist accustomed only 

 to the mosses of the British Isles. About the foot of the Pyrenees 

 he would be struck with the luxuriant fructification of Dicranum 

 glaucum and Leucodon sciuroides, the fruit of the latter being one 

 of the greatest rarities of our islands ; and he would equally re- 

 mark the absence of Bryum caspnticium, of which I gathered only 

 a single tuft, on a wall near Oloron ; nor has it been observed 

 elsewhere in the Pyrenees, though we are accustomed to look on 

 it as the commonest of mosses. Bryum cernuum and inclinatum 

 are almost equally scarce, though frequent with us and ascending 

 high into the mountains. Were he next to climb the lower cal- 

 careous hills, he would see Hypnum rugulosum, ahietinum, and 

 Leskea attenuata profusely covering the scattered stones and 

 rocks, and forming quite a marked feature even in the scenery. 

 But he would miss Hypnum undulatiim and the Sphagna which 

 ornament our moist turfy hills ; and if he ascended higher, he 

 would probably see no Splachna or Andre(je(ie. The rarity of the 

 latter cannot be attributed to the southern latitude of the Pyre- 

 nees, for they exist even under the equator^ as for instance on 

 Mount Pichincha. The abundance of these two genera in the 

 Alps of Switzerland must give a character to their vegetation 

 wanting in the Pyrenees ; and in general the Alps would seem 

 to be much more mossy than the Pyrenees, above the region of 

 forests, giving birth for example to an immense number of Brya, 

 which in the Pyrenees are nowhere abundant above the inferal- 

 pine zone. This may reasonably be attributed to the more 

 northerly position of the Alps, to their extending through a far 

 wider zone of latitude, and not consisting like the Pyrenees of a 

 single narrow chain; and to their greater humidity, which is 

 probably dependent on the immense breadth of snow that perpe- 

 tually covers them. The species described in this catalogue as 

 new have none of them been observed in the Alps, with the ex- 

 ception of Hypnum Pyrenaicwn, which was the only one noticed 



