INTRODUCTION. XXI 



The limits of the work precluded any full synonymy being 

 given ; nor, in a work of its scope, did it seem necessary to give, 

 for instance, any such full and complete synonymy as that which 

 forms so valuable a feature of the British Moss Flora. I have, 

 with few exceptions, given merely the original authority for the 

 specific name — when that differed from the authority for the 

 binomial— and also the names employed in Schimper (Synopsis, 

 Ed. II.) and in Braithwaite (British Moss Flora), when these 

 differed from the name here employed. In the case of the pleuro- 

 carpous mosses, I have given the name (where different) employed 

 by Lindberg, understanding that, in the main at least, his 

 nomenclature will be followed in the remaining parts of the 

 British Moss Flora dealing with these, which at the time of 

 writing have not been published. 



I have not attempted to give any full list of localities, nor, 

 indeed, to indicate the distribution of the species in our islands, 

 except in the case of the rarest ones. An incomplete list of 

 localities is, I hold, for this purpose not only useless but 

 misleading, and I have not the materials for anything like a 

 complete list even for the more uncommon mosses ; nor would 

 the size of the volume allow of it. I have therefore given no 

 localities except for the very rare species, but when these are 

 given they are intended to be, so far as I could make them, 

 exhaustive. 



The notes to the species are for the most part descriptive 

 rather than critical, and will, I hope, be found of assistance ; in 

 many cases two species may be distinguished, especially in the 

 field, by some slight difference in habit or mode of growth, very 

 difficult to define in set terms, but of more practical value, for this 

 purpose, than many a clearly-defined but less easily observed 

 structural character. The value of such notes will of course 

 depend upon and be proportional to the degree of the writer's 

 acquaintance with the plants themselves, especially in their 

 growing condition, and in many cases this must of necessity be 

 but small. While, however, making full use of other works on the 

 subject, I have endeavoured, whenever possible, to describe each 

 species from personal acquaintance with the plant itself, and, so 

 far as might be, from a knowledge of it in the field. In the case 

 of every species, and in the greater number of the varieties 

 described, I have examined specimens, and in most cases British 

 specimens, of the plant. 



I have introduced the plan, which is adopted in many 

 continental books, but which has not, I believe, been hitherto 



