FUNARIA. 277 



6. Funaria microstoma B. & S. (Tab. XXXVIII. F.). 



Resembling the last. Leaves a little more longly acuminate. 

 Capsule on a shorter seta, cernuous, less strongly sulcate, the 

 mouth very small, less oblique, the lid more conical and pointed ; 

 peristome smaller, the inner imperfect or rudimentary . Spores 

 rather larger, about 25 jx. 



Hab. Heaths, sides of ponds, &c. Rare. Fr. late summer. 



A rare species, but possibly overlooked ; the characters italicised above will serve 

 to distinguish it without much difficulty. 



Order XV. MEESIACE^E. 



Plants usually inhabiting bogs, of various habit and leaf- 

 form ; the leaves usually of firm texture and rather small 

 areolation (except in Amblyodon). Capsule on a long seta, more 

 or less clavate with a long neck, curved or inclined, smooth or 

 striate. Peristome double, the inner as long as or longer than 

 the outer, of 16 narrow processes alternating with the teeth, with 

 or without intermediate cilia, from a membrane of variable height 

 usually united, below each process, with the outer teeth. 



The genus Amblyodon, here included, is by Lindberg placed 

 among the Funariaces, and in this he is followed by Braithwaite. 

 The leaf-structure is distinctly that of Funaria, and it is with 

 reluctance that I have felt obliged to retain it here ; but the form 

 of the fruit is that of the present Order, and the structure of the 

 peristome is so distinctly that of Meesia, and so markedly differ- 

 ent from that of the Funariaceas, that the anomaly of uniting it 

 with the latter Order must, I think, be considered far greater than 

 that of separating it. 



62. AMBLYODON P Beauv. 



Plants with the fruit resembling Meesia and the leaf-structure 

 of Funaria. Capsule (with the neck) clavate -pyr if or m, curved 

 and asymmetrical ; peristome double, outer of 16 short, rather 

 obtuse, articulate teeth ; inner of 16 longer, lanceolate processes, 

 alternating with the teeth, sometimes connected above by 

 transverse appendages ; rudimentary intermediate cilia some- 

 times present ; basal membrane short. Calyptra small, cucullate. 



