FossoMBRONIA 81 
Mr. Pearson or in that in possession of the Owens College at 
Manchester. The species was distributed by Mr. Austin a few 
years after its publication as no. 118 Hep. Bor.-Am., but we have 
been unable to examine the spores in this, owing to the imperfect 
and fragmentary condition of the only specimen we have seen. 
Here, as after the original description, Texas as well as California | 
was cited as furnishing the species, but the Texas plant, according 
to Lindberg (who gave it the name А Texana), would appear to 
be quite a different thing, having areolate spores and being thus 
allied to F angulosa. А specimen of А longiseta, which may be 
а portion of the original material studied by Mr. Austin, is to be 
found in herb. Underwood marked “California, ex herb. С. Е. 
Austin, comm. O. D. Allen.” The original. description, it should 
be noted, calls the species divicous, while our specimens can, in 
most cases, be shown to be monoicous ; yet capsule-bearing plants 
are sometimes found which exhibit numerous abortive archegonia 
on the back of the stem without traces of antheridia in any part. 
The two kinds of organs seem never to be closely associated in 
this species. Plants collected on January 7, 1896, near Lake 
Lagunitas, Marin Co., which we believe to be of this species, 
though not spore-bearing, show numerous antheridia along the 
back of thé stem, and, from the examination with a pocket lens at 
the time of gathering, the specimens were thought to be purely 4, 
but it was demonstrated on dissection that each bore also a number 
of archegonia near the stem-apex. The truth in the matter seems 
to be that the plants are perennial in most cases at least and that 
each plant has alternating periods of archegonia- and antheridia- 
Production and that the two successive periods of production of 
either organ may sometimes be quite widely separated. 
Fossombronia longiseta is allied to F. pusilla (L.) Dumort. and 
F. Wondracsehi (Corda) Dumort. (F. cristata Lindb.), but is suf- 
ficiently distinct from both in the longer seta, the rather larger 
leaves and leaf-cells, the arrangement of the sexual organs, prob- 
ably in the perennial habit, and, in most cases at least, in the spore- 
markings. The crests of the spores are usually high, as in А 
Риза, but are commonly more numerous and often show a ten 
dency to become broken up into spines, thus affording a transition 
to the purely echinate type of Fossombronia spore. The spore- 
