TETRAPHIS. 17 



HAB. Generally found on decaying trunks of trees ; some- 

 times on the ground, arid most abundant in mountainous 

 countries. 



This plant has a peculiar character which distinguishes it 

 from every other known moss. The leaves are of a pale and 

 pleasant green colour, rigid, furnished with a nerve which 

 terminates below the point; those surrounding the peri- 

 chaetium are much longer and narrower than the rest. Cap- 

 sule oblong, cylindrical: teeth large, brown: calyptramuch 

 resembling that of an Orthotrichum, but smooth. Besides 

 the plants which bear the male and female fructification 

 (usually so called) there are others which are terminated by 

 cup-shaped receptacles, consisting of broadly obcordate leaves, 

 in the centre of which are fixed by a short footstalk small 

 spherical bodies, bearing ap exact analogy to the anthers of 

 Jungermannice. 



T. ovata', stems very short; leaves few, linear, slightly incras- 

 sated upwards, those of the perichaetium ovate, obtuse; cap- 

 sule ovate. (TAB. VIII.) 



T. ovata. Happe in Deutschl. Fl. (with a figure.) Schwaegr. Suppt 

 t. 13. Bryum Brownianum. Dicks. Crypt, fasc. 4. t. 10. /. 16. Ortho- 

 trichum Brownianum. Smith Fl. Bm'.--Grimmia Browniana. Engl. 

 Bot. t. 1422. 



HAB. Rocks, particularly of granite, in the north of En- 

 gland and Ireland. 



Although possessing the true generic character of a Te~ 

 traphis, the general aspect of the plant and the form and 

 structure of the leaves are totally different. In size, the 

 whole plant rarely exceeds half an inch. Stems scarcely any. 

 Outer leaves very few, half as long as the fruitstalk, linear 

 or only a little swollen upwards, thick, rigid, dotted. Inner 

 or perichaetial leaves broad, ovate, concave, rigid, with a faint 

 nerve at the base. All of them of an olive -green colour in- 

 clining to brown. Capsule ovate, reticulated^ dark brown. 

 Lid conico-acuminate, a little oblique. Hoppe, we believe, 

 first discovered this plant, and described it as a Tetraphis : 

 but he has omitted to figure the outer leaves, as has Schwaeg- 

 richen; nor has Bridel described them. Sir James Smith, 

 misled by the appearance of the calyptra, placed it among 

 the Orthotricha and afterwards with the Grimmice, and in 

 English. Botany is a most incorrect figure of the peristome 

 with 8 double teeth, or J 6 placed closely in pairs 



