352 A MANUAL OF MOSSES 



7. BRYHNIA Kaurin. 



Dioicous: more or less slender, weak, widely and laxly 

 cespitose, more or less dark green, when old yellowish or 

 brownish, rather dull: stem elongate, procumbent, rhizoids 

 fascicled, branching interruptedly pinnate, some of the shoots 

 in the middle of the tufts often erect and tree-like but later 

 procumbent and giving rise to new shoots; branches usually 

 spreading to recurved, thin, acute, mostly laxly-leaved; 

 paraphyllia none; stem-leaves loosely imbricate, more or less 

 concave, irregularly plicate, triangular-cordate to lance-ovate 

 from a widely decurrent and non-auriculate base; shortly or 

 more slenderly pointed, plane-margined, finely serrate all 

 around ; costa simple, ending in or over the leaf-middle, 

 smooth ; median leaf-cells incrassate, green, oblong-rhomboid 

 to oblong-hexagonal, the basal lax, a few alar rectangular; 

 branch-leaves mostly dorsally rough by projecting cell-angles, 

 sharply serrate all around; costa often ending dorsally in a 

 spine ; inner perichaetial leaves oblong, abruptly narrowed to 

 a reflexed-squarrose, long, serrate acumination: seta 8-15 mm., 

 dark red, very rough ; capsule cernuous to horizontal, dorsally 

 gibbous, oval, to oblong-cylindric ; annulus present ; peristomes 

 of equal length, the teeth basally confluent, dorsally cross- 

 striate, normally lamellate, apically papillose; inner peris- 

 tome yellow, finely papillose, basal membrane high, segments 

 lanceolate, long-subulate, split and finally gaping along the 

 keel, cilia well-developed ; lid more or less plainly shortly and 

 thickly rostrate from a conic base ; calyptra glabrous. 



A small genus of 5 species, occurring on various sub- 

 strata, confined to the Northern Hemisphere; 3 species in 

 North America; 2 species in our region. 



Key to the Species. 



a. Branch-leaves acute to short-pointed, the apex mostly twisted. 



1. B. novae-angliae . 

 a. Branch-leaves acuminate, the apex not twisted. 



2. B. graminicolor. 



1. Bryhnia novae-angliae (SulHvant and Lesquereux) Grout. 



{Hypnum novae-angliae SulHvant and Lesquereux ; Brachy- 

 thecium novae-angliae Jaeger and Sauerbeck). 



Widely and loosely matted, bright green outside, dirty 

 green inside, rigid : stems prostrate, irregularly sub-pinnately 

 branched, sometimes more or less dendroidal in appearance; 

 branches often quite distinctly julaceous ; branch-leaves rather 

 loosely imbricate when dry, erect-spreading when moist, 

 ovate, acuminate, concave, decurrent, serrulate, up to 1-1. 2 X 

 G.5-0.6 mm., dorsally papillose by reason of the projecting cell- 



