297 
MERCEYOPSIS, A NEW GENUS OF MOSSES, 
Wir Furraer Conrrisutions To THE Bryonoay or Inp1a. 
(Puates 507 & 508.) 
By H. N. Drxon, M.A., F.L.S. 
_ In the number of this Journal for May, 1909, p. 157, I gave 
an account of some mosses received Sg Mr, L. J. Sedgwick from 
the Western Ghats. Since that time I have received further 
consignments, Sat by Mr. Sedgwick, Lt.-Col. K. R. Kirtikar, 
I.M.S., and oth n the same district. I have also had ae 
examination a a iis interesting collection made b 
Eleanor Shepheard, of ay London Missionary Society, aoe a a 
short furlough in 1910 at Binsar, in the Almora district, at an 
altitude of 7000 ft. In addition to these, I have had from the 
N ork Botanic Gardens a quantity of unnamed and of un- 
pahtiuhad material of mosses from both North and South India, 
from Mitten’s herbarium ; as well as a few small collections from 
Ceylon and other parts of India. It has seemed desirable to 
treat these all together, which I hope to do in this and a subsequent 
article. An alternative method was to be with the Northern 
Indian and the Southern in separate a 
onvenience of reference, which is certainly consulted better by 
dealing with them unitedly, it is, perhaps, to the advantage of 
bryological study that the whole area in usher should be 
treated as a si i 
4 mask as much truth on the one side as it illustrates on the 
oe The moss flora of the higher altitudes of the Himalayas 
o doubt differs toto celo from that of the plains of Southern 
India and Ceylon, but there is no clear. siveing line as to species, 
far less as to genera, that can be drawn at any level of altitude or 
parallel of latitude, of which it can be said that on the one side 
lies a northern and on the other a southern moss flora. Taking, 
for intance, Mitten’s Musci Ind. Or., out of seventy-one recorded 
) and south India, fifteen may be 
regarded as exclusively northern, and five only as confined to the 
southern parts; and several of the last two groups find common 
ground in Khasia and Nepal, which form notable meeting points 
of the two floras. Since Mitten’s work, the limitations of genera 
obabie that under any system the above Bro portions would be 
cs little altered. The ise a of south od jal. 
the Neilgherriés) as a totally distinct bryological area from that 
JOURNAL OF Borany.—Vot. 48. [Dec. 1910.] Qa 
