148 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



P. FRONDOSA (Mitt.) Fleisch. On tree-trunks in sholas," Kun- 

 dala, Nilgiri Hills, Feb. 1911 ; leg. Fischer (Nos. 16, 21), c. fr. 

 Examination of numerous sporogonia in these specimens and in 

 plants in the British Museum, e. g., No. 826, Hb. Ind. Or. Hook. 

 & Thomson, Ceylon, leg. Gardner, one of the specimens cited by 

 Mitten, show that his description (Muse. Ind. Or. p. 86) of the 

 seta is slightly incorrect, viz., " pedunculum (cujus dimidium e 

 perichsetio exsertum) " ; I find it rarely, if ever, to occur that as 

 much as half is exserted ; the perichsetial bracts usually extend 

 much beyond the middle of the seta, and occasionally almost to 

 the base of the capsule. 



I have in my herbarium a plant distributed by the late T. W. 

 Naylor Beckett as ''Met. frondosum Mitt., on trees, 5000 ft., 

 Maturata, Ceylon, Sept. 1883," as to the correctness of which I 

 feel considerable doubt ; the stem is long, flexuose, with irregular 

 and short pinnate branches, considerably different from the 

 rigidly closely pinnate branching of P. frondosa, and the alar 

 cells are very little differentiated. In P. frondosa they are 

 numerous, orange-brown, and clearly defined, forming well-marked 

 decurrent auricles (" obscurius " in Mitten's description must be 

 taken of the contents of the cells, not of their presence). 



P. HooKERi (Mitt.) Card. & Dixon. Darjeeling, Miss L. J. 

 Eobinson (No. 33), st. Good fruiting specimens of this were 

 issued by Miss Eoberts in her sets of Himalayan Mosses, No. 92. 



Papillaeia fuscescens (Hook.) Jaeg. A common moss in 

 the neighbourhood of Darjeeling. A plant sent by Miss L. J. 

 Eobinson in 1896 (No. 9) has thick branches, and I should refer 

 it to var. crassiramea Een. & Card., to which also would probably 

 belong a striking form issued by Miss Eoberts in the Himalayan 

 Mosses, No. 27, determined by Brotherus s^s forma ramis crassis. 



A further Darjeehng plant, leg. Mrs. Sims, 1896 (No. 41), c. fr., 

 of a bright green colour, has leaves not much contracted when 

 dry, but convolute, and spirally arranged on the branches, some- 

 times in a very marked manner. This was sent to Mitten, who 

 labelled it " Trachyp^is funiformis C. Muell. Wilson considered 

 this to be a large state of Meteorium fuscescens.'' He wrote 

 further about it: " No. 4 is M. fuscescens, in which the capsule is 

 immersed in the perichsetium ; it is very variable in stature, rare 

 in fruit, and I am unable to distinguish your 41 from it ; this too 

 was Wilson's opinion." This No. 41 is identical with a plant col- 

 lected by Mrs. Bamforth in Ceylon, and sent me by Eev. C. H. 

 Binstead as P. Bamfortliice Broth. MS. In spite of the colour and 

 habit, this is very close to P. ftcscescens in structure, and at first 

 scarcely separable ; there is however a character which appears 

 to be constant and of some value. In P. fuscescens, as pointed 

 out first, I believe, by Fleischer, the papillae are not on the cell 

 lumen, but on the longitudinal walls dividing the cells, a character 

 which separates it from all the Indian species, at least, of the 



* Sholas = wooded ravines. 



