ARTICLE V. 



ON NEW MOSSES. 

 BY THOMAS P. JAMES. 

 Read December 16, 1864. 



THE writer submits a catalogue of all the new mosses which he has detected within the 

 limits of the United States east of the Mississippi Kiver, and which were not published 

 at the time of discovery. It includes a revision of those which were reported in his 

 article entitled " An Enumeration of Mosses detected in the Northern United States which 

 are not comprised in the Manual of Asa Gray, M.D.," published in the Proceedings of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences, December, 1855; also, several species found in localities not 

 heretofore announced. The object in adding the new localities is to exhibit a wider range 

 for future reference in forming a correct list of the geographical distribution of plants. 



Botanists have in this country mostly confined their explorations to phaenogamous 

 plants, and but little attention has been devoted to the study of anophytes. This study 

 has more recently received an impetus by the well-digested arrangement of the orders 

 Musci and Hepaticse in the first edition of Gray's Manual. This contribution was the 

 labor of that accomplished bryologist, William S. Sullivant, Esq., and is now the acknow- 

 ledged authority. In the issue of the second edition these orders received extensive addi- 

 tions and emendations by the same contributor, embracing all the discoveries up to that 

 period, presenting a vade-mecum for all students. 



The success of the writer in collecting the number reported of plants new to this coun- 

 try, compared to the limited extent of his explorations, should stimulate others to greater 

 exertions in developing the many hidden objects now unknown to science. He has ex- 

 plored some, only, of the rich localities among the Alpine regions known as the White 

 Mountains of New England, and less extensively those of the Alleghany Mountains of 

 Pennsylvania and Catskill Mountains of New York. He has traversed, partially, sections 

 of the midland of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, and in all of them has he 

 been amply rewarded, and in no case have the localities been exhausted. 



It is evident that the United States have by no means been thoroughly explored, and 

 that much remains to be accomplished. The Bryological Flora lies open to the young 

 enthusiastic botanist who desires to prosecute so interesting a study. 



-m S 



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