MEMOIRS 
PRESENTED TO THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
VOLUME I. 
1. A Catalogue of the Species of Mosses found, up to the present time, on the North- 
West Coast of the United States, and especially in California. 
By Leo LeEsQuerEux. 
[Presented Dec. 2d, 1867. ] 
RELIMINARY NOTICE. This catalogue comprises all the species of Mosses 
found, up to the present time, so far as I know, on the western coast of North Amer- 
ica, from the Mexican boundary to British Columbia. Most of the species are from 
California, gathered there by Dr. Bigelow, and Messrs. W. H. Brewer and H. N. 
Bolander of the State Geological Survey. It is to the last-named gentleman that the 
Bryology of the State of California is chiefly indebted. To render this list more com- 
plete, I have admitted into it the species collected by Dr. Lyall, in Oregon, on the 
Northwest Boundary Survey, along the 49th parallel, from the western base of the 
Rocky Mountains to Vancouver Island included. 
I have not attempted, in this enumeration, to suggest any peculiar system of 
nomenclature or classification ; but have merely followed what I considered the most 
natural grouping, copied from the ‘ Bryologia Europea,” and from Schimper’s Synop- 
sis of European Mosses. New systems of classification are now originated in bryologic 
science, as it appears to me, for the mere satisfaction of their authors, and without the 
slightest advantage to science. Indeed, these new systems have had a most baneful 
influence on the study of this most interesting department of botanical science. A 
discussion of their merits—or rather, their demerits—will, especially in a catalogue 
like this, be useless. 
Some species of mosses, considered as new and distinct by authors of high repu- 
tation, are included in this catalogue as mere varieties. The flora of California, in all 
its departments, is liable to great local varieties, according to the peculiar atmospheric 
and chemical conditions to which it is subjected. The more the phenerogamic flora of 
MEM. CAL. ACAD. SCI. VOL. I. 1 Jan. 1868. 
