ON CALIFORNIAN MOSSES. 



15 



shows the relation of the Bryological flora of California with that of Europe, and at the 

 same time its entire disruption from that of Eastern North America. But the relation 

 between the mosses of California and of Europe, is rendered still more remarkable by the 

 identity of the peculiar habitat of some species, and at the same time by the near affinity 

 of species which we consider as true California!!, with typical European forms. Thus 

 on one side, Mr. Bolander finds Dcmnatodon nervosum on the walls of an old Indian abode, 

 and Schimper found it first on the old walls surrounding Strasbourg. Barbula latifolia 

 and Orthofrichum urnigerum, both species very rare in Europe, grow sometimes together 

 on the stumps of old willow trees, or on old logs near running water, and Mr. Bolander 

 finds them in California both together on an old fence-post in a creek. Axacalypta 

 Starkeana and Trichostomum flexipes have in California also just the same habitat that 

 both have in Sardinia, Smyrna, and other places on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea : 

 for it is especially with the Mediterranean shores that California, is related by its mosses. 

 On another side, and considering the afHnity of peculiar Califoruian species with Euro- 

 pean types, we find Barbula vinealia pertaining to Europe and California, and here six or 

 seven species described as new, but so nearly related to the normal form that they might 

 be considered as varieties only. Barbula rnarginata, a peculiar type found all around the 

 Mediterranean Sea, in Spain, South France, Algeria, &c, is in California, with two pecu- 

 liar or new species also very nearly related to it. The species of Grimmia and of Bryum 

 present in California the same subdivision of forms, and the same relation of new species 

 with European types. In the section Scleropodivm of the genus Hypnum, we find in 

 California with the two European species, a third one of a diminutive size but of the same 

 affinity, and in the section Gamptothecium, California has a species nearly allied to Hypnum 

 lutescens of Europe, having precisely the same and peculiar habitat, viz., covering the sand 

 around bushes. Even the fine new Braunia, the Califoruian representative of a genus 

 whose species are very rare, is related more perhaps with Braunia secunda Mild, of the 

 barren mountains of Mexico, but nearly also with Braunia sciuroides Bryol. Eur., a very 

 rare plant of the southern valleys of Switzerland. 



Is it possible to explain this remarkable analogy between the Bryologia of California 

 and that of Southern Europe, by some law of transmission of species between intermediate 

 points as that which apparently governs the distribution of the phamogamous plants I As 

 the disruption eastward through Eastern North America, is complete, we can only, to solve 

 the question, look westward, in Japan and the adjacent islands, and sec if we find there 

 some link of connection. 



Of the Bryology of Japan, we know nearly as much as of that of California, especially 

 from the researches and collections of Mr. Charles Wright. Now we find, according to 



