PREFACE 



The plants treated in the present report are largely 

 neglected by collectors, partly on account of their small size 

 and the difficulties encountered in their identification, partly 

 on account of their slight value from an economic standpoint. 

 To the student of botany, however, and especially to the 

 morphologist and taxonomist, they are of exceptional interest. 

 The morphologist finds among them all gradations between 

 simple and more complex types of structure, and is thus 

 enabled to gain some idea of the way in which the higher 

 plants may have been derived from the lower; while the 

 taxonomist obtains from them a series of distinct and at- 

 tractive genera and species, which offer for his solution many 

 complicated problems in variation and geographical distribu- 

 tion. In presenting to the botanists of Connecticut some ac- 

 count of the work which has been done on the Bryophytes 

 within the state, it is hoped that more interest in this neglected 

 group of plants may be aroused. 



The report includes a general description of the Bryophytes 

 as a whole and of the six subdivisions or orders into which it 

 seems advisable to divide them. It also contains keys, more 

 or less artificial, to aid in the identification of those species 

 which have been detected in Connecticut. But it makes no 

 attempt to describe or illustrate the genera and species 

 represented, and is not intended as a substitute for the works 

 in which such descriptions and illustrations are to be found. 

 The student who makes a careful study of our Mosses and 

 Hepatics will still find it necessary to use books of this charac- 

 ter in order to confirm the determinations made by the keys, 

 but the report should make the work of determination more 

 decisive by indicating which species are to be expected in 

 our region. The various books, articles, and scattered notes, 

 which relate directly to Connecticut Bryophytes, are listed in 



