BUXBAUMIA. 49 



1. Buxbaumia aphylla L. (Tab. XII. A.) 



Plants very small, growing on a thick stratum of brownish 

 protonema. Bracts minute, almost obsolete, brownish, the 

 marginal cilia developing, after fertilisation, into protonemoid 

 filaments, so that when the capsule is mature, little is to be seen 

 around the thickened vaginula but a mass of rufous tomentum. 

 Seta thick, very scabrous, about half-an-inch long, purplish. 

 Calyptra minute, conico-cylindrical, usually split on one side. 

 Capsule inclined or almost horizontal, with a stout, distinct neck, 

 depressed above and with a more or less angular border, broadly 

 ovate-acuminate in outline ; of a dark brown colour and thick 

 texture, glossy, the cuticle rolling back from the mouth at 

 maturity and forming a border ; lid short, obtusely conical, more 

 or less erect and recurved, attached to the columella. Peristome, 

 the outer a single series of very short, filiform, papillose teeth 

 hardly rising above the surrounding membrane ; inner membrane 

 pale brown, papillose. Spores very small, escaping by the lateral 

 splitting of the capsule, about 5 /* in diameter. 



Hab. On the ground or on rotten wood, especially in fir woods ; not often 

 reappearing twice in the same locality. Rare. Fr. early summer. 



This very strange plant was formerly considered a fungus, and indeed to any but 

 a bryologist it seems to have little in common with other mosses. The fruit is as large 

 as that of Polytrichum, and seems disproportionate to the size of the plant. Gobel, 

 in the paper above quoted, has shown that what has usually been taken for the 

 antheridium is really the male plant, enclosing a single globose, stalked antheridium 

 similar to that of Sphagnum and of the Hepaticse ; and he points out too the primi- 

 tive character of the leaves or perichastial bracts, which are very little more than ex- 

 pansions of the protonema, normally producing new protonemoid threads at their 

 margins, as might take place at any other part of that organ. 



2. Buxbaumia indusiata Brid. (Tab. XII. B.) 



Capsule on a shorter, less scabrous seta, more erect, less 

 flattened above, narrowly oval, paler, not glossy ; cuticle thinner, 

 splitting longitudinally at maturity with the edges rolled back- 

 wards ; lid rather larger ; outer peristome of four concentric 

 rows of linear teeth, the outermost very short, the inner gradually 

 longer, the innermost more than half the length of the inner peris- 

 tome ; all more or less finely articulate, papillose, brownish; 

 spores larger, about 10 /*. 



Hab. Decayed branches in pine woods. Fr. summer. Very rare. Aberdeen- 

 shire, Ross-shire. 



Rather smaller and of a less rigid habit and texture, and a paler colour. 



E 



