480 HYPNACE^. 



equal in length except at the summit of the stem, where they 

 gradually diminish like the pinnae of a fern, hooked and shining 

 at the tips. Stem-leaves crowded, very wide, thin and 

 membrano2is, whitish ; from a wide, rounded-oblong, erect, 

 strongly plicate base gradually acuminate to a slender, hamato- 

 secund, tapering point ; decurrent, remotely denticulate above ; 

 cells very narrow, vermicular , incrassate, 10-20 times as long as 

 broad, angular wide, pellucid, not very distinct. Paraphyllia 

 numerous. Branch-leaves much narrower, less deeply plicate, 

 strongly circinate, usually in the same plane as that of the frond. 

 Seta long, 14-2 inches ; capsule large, horizontal, arcuate. 

 Dioicous. 



Hab. On rocks and earth in mountainous woods, principally of conifers ; rare. 

 North of England, Scotland, Ireland. Fruit very rare, summer. 



This splendid species, indisputably one of our most beautiful mosses, though rare 

 with us, is usually most abundant in the spots where it is found, growing among 

 mosses and other plants, and very striking and conspicuous. Even in its most stunted 

 forms it is more regularly and equally pinnate than H. molluscum, and quite distinct in 

 its stem-leaves. The densely pinnate branches are rendered the more close in 

 appearance by the fact that the leaves of each branch are usually curved towards the 

 succeeding lower branch, in the same plane with the whole frond, thus filling the 

 spaces between the branches ; in most of the allied species, which are less erect, the 

 downward curving of the leaves places them more at right angles to this plane, and 

 the branches are therefore more remote in appearance, even if not much more so in 

 actual distance. 



D. LIMNOBIUM. 



Plants procumbent, rarely erect, almost always growing on 

 wet rocks, principally on mountains ; never in bogs, rarely on 

 wood. Leaves short and wide, of soft, flaccid texture, obtuse, 

 rounded and apiculate, or shortly pointed, rarely shortly acuminate 

 and acute. Nerve double or forked, in some species at times 

 single and reaching high in the leaf. 



The leaves are generally more or less secund and falcate, 

 though rarely strongly so, almost entire except in H. micans, 

 though in some foreign species, e.g., H. montanum Wils., 

 regularly denticulate ; and in their general form and texture very 

 distinct from those of the other Sections, in the latter respect 

 especially from those of Calliergon, which otherwise they most 

 resemble. The form of leaf and the character of the angular 

 cells are of the greatest importance for their determination. 



The species may be briefly tabulated according to the 

 character of these angular cells, as follows, omitting H. micans 

 which is quite distinct in its roundish, distinctly denticulate leaves, 



