132 GRIMMIACEiE. 



Var. S. pumila Schp. In very short dense tufts, slender; 

 leaves narrower, very shortly hair-pointed ; capsule small, thin- 

 walled, wide-mouthed. 



Hab. Stones and walls, common. The vars. $, y, in streams, attached to 

 rocks. The var. 5 on mountain rocks. Fr. spring and summer. 



The various forms of this common moss are too numerous to allow of detailed 

 description. The hair-points are sometimes wanting, sometimes prolonged and 

 hoary, entire or denticulate ; the leaves are variable in form, colour, and direction, 

 the capsule in form and texture ; the peristome teeth are entire or more or less 

 perforate, while the habit varies from a dwarf plant, about J inch in height, to a 

 robust aquatic form almost rivalling Cinclidotus fontinaloides in size and depth of 

 colour. The var. pumila forms a transition to the following plant ; indeed, forms 

 occur which could not be separated from G. conferta except by the slightly more solid, 

 less cribrose teeth. 



Innovations are formed below the fruit, which soon overtop it, so that, in vars. $ 

 and 7 especially, as it persists for several years, it has all the appearance of being 

 lateral, several capsules often appearing one above the other on the same stem. 



When the capsules are present this can hardly be taken for any other moss ; in 

 their absence the colour, the cuspidate branches, and the shortly hyaline leaf-points 

 make it an easily recognised plant. It is a coarser, more rigid plant than most of the 

 species of this genus. 



* Grimmia conferta Funck. ( Tab. XXI. E.). 



Resembles G. apocarpa var. pumila ; plants small in dense 

 cushions, greyish green above, rather softer in texture, leaves 

 small, shortly hair-pointed ; nerve prominent at back of leaf; 

 areolation small. Capsule thin-walled, ovate-globose, hemis- 

 pherical after the fall of the lid ; peristome teeth thin, variously 

 divided and perforated, fragile. 



Var. /?. pruinosa Braithw. (G. pruinosa Wils., Schp. Syn.). 

 More robust ; leaves broader, the upper with long, smoothish 

 hair-points ; capsule longer ; peristome teeth narrower, often 

 reflexed. 



Hab. Mountain rocks, rare. The var. j8 more frequent than the type. P'r. 

 spring. 



G. conjerta though treated as a species by Braithwaite and most authors, is, I 

 think, too slightly marked and too closely linked with G. apocarpa by the var. pumila 

 of the latter as well as by its own var. pruinosa, to be maintained independently ; 

 I can find no constant difference in the form of the leaves or the size of their cells ; 

 while the capsule in G. apocarpa var. pumila is exactly that of G. conferta, and the 

 difference in the amount of perforation of the peristome teeth is only one of degree. 



Both plants have a form with obtuse hairless leaves, that of the present one 

 constituting the var. obtusifolia of Schimper. 



2. Grimmia maritima Turn. (Tab. XXI. F.). 



In dense rigid cushions, yellowish green on the surface, 

 blackish below, 1-2 inches high. Leaves crowded, stiff, solid, 



