292 PLANT LIFE OF ALABAMA. 



To the Arctic region extend 22 species, of which the following are 

 North American : 



Sphagnum imbricatitm. Polytrichum cnpillarc. 



Sphagnum cuHpidatum torreyaitnm. ('Hmacinm americiuium. 



Sphagnum papillosum. Braehythecinm o.ryc~l<ulon. 



Sphagnum medium. Raphidostegium recur rans. 



The rest of the species are widely distributed in the cooler regions of 

 the Old World. 



Of transcontinental species which on the west coast range from 

 California to British Columbia 31 occur in Alabama, of which only the 

 following are confined to this continent: 



Brachythec'mm oxycladon. Eurhynchium hians. 



Campylium hispidulum. Raphidostegium recurvans. 



The others are almost all cosmopolitan wanderers throughout the 

 cooler temperate region of the Northern Hemisphere, many of them 

 found in Europe. Alabama has 26 species in common with the latter 

 continent, mostly erratic in temperate zones of the globe. 



Of anomalous distribution Brachythecium campestre is a striking 

 example, this species being known only from the White Mountains of 

 New England and the Kooky Mountain region irom Colorado to British 

 Columbia. 



REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION. 



In no other part of the State are mosses found in greater variety and 

 abundance than in the section of the mountain region which embraces 

 the Warrior table-laud and the southern spurs of the Cumberland 

 Mountains abutting upon the Tennessee Valley. The manifold differ- 

 ences in the topography and geology of this section of the State give 

 rise to a diversity in conditions of climate, exposure, and soil which 

 afford the peculiar habitat to which each species finds itself best 

 adapted, and to which it clings more tenaciously than most plants of a 

 higher order; for, as Professor Lesquereux, the close student of the 

 moss world, aptly remarks, these humble and apparently useless beings 

 have their geological and lithological preferences far better marked 

 than any other kind of vegetable. 



The species prevailing in the northern part of the State at an eleva- 

 tion exceeding 1,500 feet are mostly the same as found in the Middle 

 and Northeastern States. On the lower terraces and in the valleys 

 Southern forms intermingle with those of higher latitudes. For 

 example, at the falls of Black Creek near Gadsden, 1,000 feet altitude, 

 the Northern Fissidens adiantoides is associated with the tropical Fissi- 

 dens polypodioides, and on the Cumberland table-land in Jackson and 

 Morgan counties the Southern Sphagnum macrophyllum, S. cyclophyllum, 

 and 8. molle muelleri, with S. recurvum vars. and 8. cuspidatum torrcy- 



