MR. G. E. HUNT ON MOSSES NEW TO BRITAIN. 331 



XIV. On Mosses new to Britain. 

 By G. E. HuNT^ Esq. 



Read before the Microscopical and Natural History Sections, 

 NoYcmber 12th, 1866. 



The present Paper records the species of mosses that have 

 been identified in Britain since the publication of Wilson's 

 ^ Bryologia Britannica/ 1855. The number there described 

 is about 450^ and the additions amount to about 75 species. 

 Doubtless much more yet remains to be done^ for whilst 

 some previously little-understood groups have been tho- 

 roughly examined (such, for example^ as Campylopus 

 and Orthotrichum) some have hardly been studied — as e.g., 

 Amblystegium, many species of which genus may be 

 expected yet in Britain. Of all the groups, however, 

 perhaps the one in the most confused and unsatisfactory 

 state is that group of the Hypna called the Adunca, the 

 species of which apparently each run through a series of 

 forms similar outwardly in each species, according to the 

 stations in which they grow. The various groups of mosses 

 are intimately connected, showing that there is a gradual 

 progression onwards between them; indeed there are few 

 genera that have not close connecting links with those 

 lower and higher than themselves. Thus Phascum is 

 linked to Gymnostomum by the Phascum rostellatum and ^ 

 G. squarrosmn, both placed by Dr. Schimper in a sec- 

 tion Hymenostomum ; Gymnostomum to Weissia through 

 Weissia viridula, which sometimes is without a peristome. 

 The Trichostoma gradually merge into Tortula through 

 Trichostomum rigidulum &c., which Lindberg places in 

 Tortula on account of the inclined teeth of the peristome ; 

 and Tortula passes back into Pottia (a genus without a 

 peristome) through Tortula cavifolia, a, species which Dr. 



