22 SPHAGNACE/E. 



often falcato-secund ; the leaves less closely imbricated than in S. 

 intermedium, longer and narrower, with a broader margin, the 

 cells usually with rather more numerous pores; undulated at 

 margin, but less flexuose when dry and hardly recurved at apex 

 except in the short branches of the capitulum. Perichsetial bracts 

 less pointed. Spores brown. In other respects like S. inter- 

 medium. 



Var. (3. falcatum Russ. Branches more or less arcuate and 

 falcate ; branch leaves narrowly lanceolate, the terminal ones 

 falcate. 



Var. y. plumosum Nees and Hornsch. Submerged, flaccid, 

 elongated. Branches uniform, divergent, plumose, with, very 

 long, lanceolate-subulate, spreading leaves. 



Var. S. Torreyanum. Braithw. (S. Torreyanum Sull.) Sub- 

 merged, very robust, more rigid ; dirty brown. Stem leaves 

 large, non-fibrose. Branch leaves very large, elongate, lanceolate- 

 subulate, tubulose and toothed at apex, the hyaline cells with 

 numerous pores. 



Var. e. brevifolium Lindb. Stems firm, 5-6 inches high, 

 pale; stem leaves short, ovate, obtuse. Branches in closely set 

 fascicles, short, ascending and divergent, arcuato-decurved from 

 the middle, attenuated ; the leaves subsecund when dry, short, 

 ovate, somewhat oblique and unequal sided. 



Hab. Pools and wet bogs, frequent. The vars. /8, y, 8, in standing water. 

 Var. Torreyanum, Whitchurch, Shropshire. 



I have retained S. cuspidatum as a species, though very doubtful whether it ought 

 not to be considered a sub-species of S. intermedium. The characters by which they 

 are separated are almost all comparative. Authors differ very much in their descrip- 

 tion of the state of the leaves when dry, some saying they are not at all crisped, while 

 others describe them as more or less flexuose. The fact is they vary considerably, 

 some forms having the leaves when dry, straight, and only slightly undulated at 

 margin, while in others they are recurved and flexuose, almost exactly as in S. inter- 

 medium. This is the case with a form sent me by Mr. Boswell, from Whixall, Shrop- 

 shire. In the short branches of the capitulum the leaves seem indeed usually to be 

 recurved at apex, exactly as in .S. intermedium. The stem leaves, too, are not 

 always fibrose, and forms are found, according to Cardot, with the cuticular cells in- 

 distinct. 



The var. plumosum is a very beautiful form 'when growing, but it is almost im- 

 possible to preserve its delicate, feathery appearance when dried. In one form (var. 

 serrulatum Schlieph. ), which I have gathered on Bodmin Moors, Cornwall, the 

 broad borders of linear non-fibrose cells in the branch leaves are distinctly toothed at 

 the apex of the leaf, and run together into a long, very narrow denticulate point, not 

 at all unlike the apex of the leaves of some of the Harpidioid Hypna. 



Another form (var. monocladum Kling. ) is very lax, with the branches solitary or 

 almost so ; stem leaves and branch leaves similar, broadly truncated above • the 

 upper part of the leaves is sometimes composed mainly of chlorophyllose cells inter- 



