178 



MOSSES WITH A HAND-LENS 



KANTIA. 



K. TRICHOMANIS (L.) S. F. Gray, the Common Kantia, is a 

 very common hepatic forming a light green network or mat on 

 moist peaty banks and rotten logs in the woods. It is medium 

 sized, the leafy stems being T '^ inch or more wide, often 

 attenuate and ascending with minute 

 leaves at base and ending in a cluster 

 of gemmae. It may be recognized by 

 the following characters : leaves in- 

 cubous, not complicate-bilobed, entire, 

 roundish-ovate, lying flat in two op- 

 posite rows in one plane, underleaves 

 present but small, bifid at apex; in- 

 volucre subcylindric, hairy, buried in 

 the substratum and attached to the 

 stem by one side of its mouth; cap- 

 sule cylindric, the valves spirally 

 FIGURE 108. Kantia tri- twisted. The spores mature in May 

 chomanis. an( J J une . 



All the other species of a similar appearance have leaves 

 lobed or toothed, or succubous. 



tf LEAVES SUCCUBOUS TOOTHED OR LOBED. 



PLAGIOCHILA. 



P. ASPLENOiDES (L.) Dum., the Spleenwort Hepatic, is so 

 called because its stem is so dark as to remind one of some of 

 the darker spleenworts like the Ebony Spleenwort, for instance. 

 The plants .are among the. largest of the scale mosses, the stems 

 being 1-4 inches long and - to f\ of an inch wide with the 

 leaves ascending, not closely attached to substratum, rather loose 

 and straggling. Specimens have been found ten inches long. 

 The leaves are succubous, somewhat irregular in shape, but 

 obovate in general outline, not lobed or cleft, but some or all of 

 the leaves strongly ciliate-dentate. They are very oblique on the 

 stem, subclasping and somewhat decurrent. There are no under- 

 leaves, and as the upper portion of the stem is free from rhizoids, 

 this fact is easily made out. The spores mature in May and June, 



