16 BRYOPHYTA. 
examine a specimen originally described and figured by Buckman! 
under the name Waadita, from the plant bed at the base of the 
Lias, near Bristol; his inspection of this supposed monocotyledon 
led him to the conclusion that Buckman’s plant was probably 
closely allied to the common fresh-water moss Fontinalis. In this 
opinion he was supported by Messrs. Carruthers and Murray, of 
the British Museum, to whom the specimen was shown. 
In a footnote to Gardner’s paper the important fact is added 
that a capsule had been sent to him by Mr. Brodie from the same 
locality. 
The argument advanced by Heer? in the ‘‘ Urwelt der Schweiz” 
for the existence of Triassic mosses is well known. In describing 
some Lias insects from the rocks of Schambelen, Heer notes the 
absence of fossil fungi in these rocks, but goes on to say that their 
presence may be inferred from the occurrence of certain genera of 
beetles. The same kind of reasoning is made use of in the case of 
mosses; four species of Byrrhus, found in the Schambelen Lias, 
are supposed to warrant the assumption that mosses were also in 
existence, because at the present day the nearest living allies of 
those Schambelen beetles derive their food from mosses. Such 
reasoning can hardly be accepted in the accumulation of reliable 
evidence for the geological history of particular classes of plants. 
A Cretaceous moss has been figured by Ettingshausen and Debey 
from the Aachen and Maestricht rocks under the name Juscites 
cretaceus*®; the figure of the type specimen shows a very small 
and imperfect fragment. The plant fragments figured by Roemer,‘ 
and described by him as JDuscites imbricatus and I. falcifolius, 
from the North German Wealden beds, are most probably pieces 
of coniferous branches, and certainly of no value as records of 
Wealden mosses. The specimen figured by Dunker, from the 
same district, as Juscites Sternbergianus, is in all probability a 
fragment of a coniferous branch. From the Tertiary rocks several 
authors have described species of Jusecites, but in nearly all cases 
the determinations are based solely on fragments of vegetative 
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vi. p. 418. 
2 Urwelt, 1879, p. 99. 
3 Denkschr. k. Ak. Wiss. mat. nat. Cl. vol. xvii. p. 186, pl. i. fig. 6. 
4 Verstein. Ool. Geb. p. 10, pl. xvii. fig. 2. 
5 Wealdenbildung, p. 20, pl. vii. fig. 10. 
