Fam. 12. SPLACHNACE^. 



Plants gregarious or csespitant, dichotomous with few branches. 

 Leaves slender-nerved, broad, membranous and flaccid, the cells large 

 lax pellucid, rhombic or pentagonal, smooth. Infl. terminal, the male 

 subdiscoid or capituliform. Capsule on a tall seta, subcylindric, erect, 

 with a distinct hypophysis which is obconic, pyriform, globose or 

 umbrella-shaped, collapsing when old ; calyptra cucullate and cleft on 

 one side or conic and entire ; peristome of 16 geminate or 8 bigeminate 

 lineal-lane, teeth, strongly hygroscopic ; spores smooth. Inhabiting the 

 earth, but especially on rotten dung and other animal matters. 



This dis-tinct family comprises about 40 species, some of them ranking 

 amongst the most elegant of known mosses, and especially remarkable for 

 the great spongy and often gaily coloured hypophysis, which forms the major 

 portion of the fruit. 



The cleistocarpous genus Voitia Hornsch. finds its most natural place 

 in this family. 



I. SPLACHNUM L. 



Sp. plant. 1108 (1753). 



Plants laxly tufted, with slender dichotomous stems. Leaves 

 remote, patulous, the upper rosulate, broadly obovate-lanc. narrow at 

 base, cells very lax, hexagonal. Caps, on a long seta, oval and shortly 

 cylindric, on a very much larger hypophysis of a different colour, and 

 pyriform, globose or umbraculiform ; teeth of peristome 16, lineal, 

 geminate, reflexed when dry. Inhabiting rotten peat and dung. — Der. 

 ^TrXayxvov used by Dioscorides for the lichen Sticta pulmonaria. 



This genus comprises 7 species which fall naturally into two sections 

 according to the form of the hypophysis ; in the first of these, Ampullaria 

 C. MuELL. — to which all our British species belong, — this organ has the form 

 of an inverted flask, but in Umbracularia it is immensely dilated like an 

 expanded umbrella. The species referable to the latter are S. vuhymn, luteum 

 and melanpcaulon, and it is quite possible that S. luteum may turn up in some 

 of the deer forests of Sutherland or Caithness, although all three are most at 

 home in Lapland. 



Clavis to the Species. 



Hypophysis vesicular, tapering downward. ampullaceum. 



globose. 



Leaves very obtuse, entire. vasculosum, 

 longly acuminate, acute. pedunculatum. 



