PREFACE 
The plants treated in the present report are largely 
neglected by collectors, partly on account of their small size 
and the difficulties encountered in their identification, partly 
on account of their slight value from an economic standpoint. 
To the student of botany, however, and especially to the 
morphologist and taxonomist, they are of exceptional interest. 
The morphologist finds among them all gradations between 
simple and more complex types of structure, and is thus 
enabled to gain some idea of the way in which the higher 
plants may have been derived from the lower; while the 
taxonomist obtains from them a series of distinct and at- 
tractive genera and species, which offer for his solution many 
complicated problems in variation and geographical distribu- 
tion. In presenting to the botanists of Connecticut some ac- 
count of the work which has been done on the Bryophytes 
within the state, it is hoped that more interest in this neglected 
group of plants may be aroused. 
The report includes a general description of the Bryophytes 
as a whole and of the six subdivisions or orders into which it 
seems advisable to divide them. It also contains keys, more 
or less artificial, to aid in the identification of those species 
which have been detected in Connecticut. But it makes no 
attempt to describe or illustrate the genera and_ species 
represented, and is not intended as a substitute for the works 
in which such descriptions and illustrations are to be found. 
The student who makes a careful study of our Mosses and 
Hepatics will still find it necessary to use books of this charac- 
ter in order to confirm the determinations made by the keys, 
but the report should make the work of determination more 
decisive by indicating which species are to be expected in 
our region. The various books, articles, and scattered notes, 
which relate directly to Connecticut Bryophytes, are listed in 
