18G0.] ORTHOTRTCIIUM ANOMALUM. 861 



known for all time to come. It may, perhaps, be as well here 

 to recapitulate the characters by which it is distinguished, so as 

 to bring the two into more immediate contrast. The capsule is 

 generally rather longer and narrower, paler in colour, slightly 

 ovate or subcylindrical, its base tapering graduallij into the fruit- 

 stalk, thicker in texture, regularly eighl-striate ; the strife strong, 

 well defined, and deeply coloured in the upper part, uniform in 

 length, becoming gradually thinner and fainter as they descend, 

 ultimately lost in the tapering neck ; the interspaces are neces- 

 sarily wider, and, when dry and empty, the capsule is scarcely 

 contracted in the middle, retaining much of its cylindrical form ; 

 the mouth is smaller, and less patent; the operculum is plano- 

 convex, concolorous, with a short, blunt beak; calyptra brown, 

 conic-campanulate, and more hairy. The teeth of the peristome 

 are always geminate, even when old, and do not separate into six- 

 teen single, equidistant teeth, and are somewhat paler in colour, 

 inflexed and convergent over the mouth of the capsule when dry. 



On submitting the Aberdour specimens to my friend Mr. 

 Wilson for his opinion respecting them, he was immediately 

 struck with their great dissimilarity to anything he had pre- 

 viously seen, so far as he then knew, and at once admitted them 

 as essentially diflFerent from our 0. anomalwn, making at the 

 time the following observation : — " I do believe you have at last 

 got hold of the genuine 0. strangulatum of Muhlenberg and 

 Palisot de Beauvois." This was certainly a new idea to me, for I 

 knew but little of that species excepting from the remarks made 

 in Br. Eur. respecting it, and which I here transcribe : — " 0. stran- 

 gulatum of Muhlenb., etc. ; appears to be identical Avith O. cu- 

 pulatum ; we have seen small specimens of the var. /3 riparium 

 which seem to accord perfectly with the figure and description as 

 given by Schwsegrichen of this American Moss." On referring 

 to Bridel, we found the characters as there given of this species 

 to agree tolerably well with the specimens from Aberdour, the 

 greatest discrepancy being in the length of the fruit-stalks, which 

 are described as '^ very short." We, however, arrived then at 

 the conclusion that it was most probably referable to that 

 species, and that ultimately it might be found that 0. anomalum 

 of Bry. Eur., and 0. strangidatum of the American botanists, 

 were very probably identical. 



It would, indeed seem that there were some circumstances 



.V. S. VOL. IV. 3 a 



