BRYOLOGICAL NOTES FROM THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 805 
3000 ft. or more, besides several only slightly lower ones, all com- 
posed more or less of that friable mica schist to which in a great 
part at least is owed the richness of the flora, and pre-eminently 
of the moss-flora, of _ sepa And the greater number of these, 
as far as I am aware, are to bryologists still virgin soil. 
After gathering Play Sietheries Miillerianum Schp., near Killin 
in 1897, I was or on the look-out for it, sat had the satis- 
faction of finding it in three or four fresh localities, viz. Ben Lui 
Ben ao Cig v3 ailleach, and Ben Douran. 
It w with Thuidium Philiberti Limpr. Not 
only aid. ag ore across 3 it in some quantity on Craig Chailleach, 
where I first gathered it in 1893, but it occurred also on Ben 
Chalum, while on Ben Lui it is the ‘prevailing Thuidium, and quite 
abundant. On the last-named mountain 7’. delicatulum Mitt. was 
also detected. ‘There is some considerable degree of variation in 
np three rena allied species, recognitum, Philiberti, and delicatulum, 
s regards some of the vegetative characters, such as the degree of 
pinnation, re length of nerve in the stem-leaves, se the recurving 
or otherwise of their margins ; and thoug these are not unfre- 
ao of 7. delicatulum tripinnate ; yet luxuriant specimens of the 
rmer are certainly occasionally tripinnate, while the reverse is not 
cnftahyactilly the case with TZ. delicatulum. There is, however, a 
very useful character to be derived from the position of the stem- 
leaves, which Dr. Best points out in his Revision of the North 
American Thuidiums, and which has not, I think, been distinguished 
in European works on the subject. T. tamariscinum and T. deli- 
catulum the stem-leaves are very similar, and in the moist wa 
apex of the growing stem, where the leaves are frequently turned to 
the lower side, and may then present the faleate or subcircinate 
condition that one sees, for instance, in the analogous leaves of 
Hi ag gies molluscu 
Ww a little surprised to find ue indy ne fruiting 
freely in sited localities. I had a ooked u it as a rare 
fruiter, which doubtless in the main it tas but we saw ‘it fruiting in 
some quantity in three distinct localities, viz. Ballachulish, Tyn-. 
drum, and Ben Lui. Nor was it an unusual occurrence induced by 
a peculiarity in the season, for in all cases old capsules and set# 
were present. 
JousnaL or Borany.—Vou. 37. [Juny, 1899.] x 
