DICRANACEJE.] 164 [Oncophorus. 



Dioicous; laxly tufted, slightly branched, somewhat glossy, dull 

 yellow green, resembling D. pellucidum. Leaves less crowded, longer 

 flatter and narrower, gradually tapering to a more acute flat point, 

 crenato-serrate in the upper half, basal cells more elongated, the quad- 

 rate ones forming a very slight border to the basal wing, and not coming 

 so low down in the leaf, scarcely papillose. Capsule erect or slightly 

 inclined, oblong, subcylindric, pale brown, contracted below the mouth 

 when dry, lid with an oblique acute beak ; peristome paler with longer 

 teeth, not longitudinally punctate-striolate below middle, nor papillose 

 at apex. 

 HAB. On stones and gravel by banks of streams. Fr. 9. 



Forfar (Don 1802). Bantry (Miss Hutchins 1809). R. Dargle (Taylor 1812). Collington 

 (Greville). Appin (Carmichael). Nant-y-Flydd (Wilson 1833). Mill Dingle, High 

 cliff, Rowsley and Matlock (Wilson 1834) ! Bolton woods and Stanley Clough (Nowell) \ 

 By the Calder (Gardiner 1834). By the Esk and Wharfe, Yorks. (Spruce 1842) ! ! 

 Hungershall rocks, Tunbridge Wells (Mitten). Thirsk and Wensleydale (Baker 1852) ! 

 Windermere (Clowes 1854) ! Woodend (Sidebotham 1858) ! Fin glen and Dunoon 

 (Hunt 1865) ! ! 



The leaves are less complicate than in the last species, the areolation 

 laxer with the dorsal papillae only mammosely protuberant. 



Oreoweissia sevvulata (Funck) Schimp. has been recorded by Dr. Stirton 

 from Ben Lawers, but no specimens have come before us. Its head-quarters 

 are the Italian alps and Austrian Tyrol. 



ONCOPHORUS BRIDEL. 



(Bryol. univ. i, 389 (1826) ). 



Plants in dense cushioned tufts, dichotomously branched. Leaves 

 long, comant, crisped when dry, opake, with minute quadrate areolation, 

 more or less papillose. Calyptra inflato-cucullate. Capsule erect or 

 subincurved, oval or oblong, with a short neck, usually strumose, some- 

 times equal, striate, sulcate when dry, rarely smooth ; teeth lanceolate, 

 cleft into two unequal legs, or subulate, or more or less imperfect. 

 Inhabiting mountain rocks. Der. oy/cos a swelling, <opeo> to bear. 



This expressive name Oncophorus was first mentioned by Bridel in his 

 Mantissa, p. 53 (1819), as a section of Dicranum for all the strumose fruited 

 species, and in his Bryologia established as a genus, including besides the 

 principal species retained here, Dicranella cerviculata and squarrosa, Dicranum 

 Starkei, falcatum, &c. In 1801 appeared Cynontodium Hedwig (altered by Bridel 

 to Cynodontium] for the two species of Swartzia EHRH. but in 1846 Schimper 

 renamed this genus Distichium, and transferred Cynodontium to Dicranum 

 Bruntoni, and Oncophorus to Hampe's older genus Leucobryum, but in his 

 Synopsis C. gracilescens, polycarpum and virens were added, and in 2 ed. C. 

 schisti also, C. Bruntoni being moved into Dicranoweisia. The genus as now 

 defined includes a number of closely allied species differing but little in 

 habit and foliage, but presenting considerable variations in the peristome, by 



