DICRANACEAE, 55 
leaves are much longer and finer than Brown has drawn them; they are, 
however, have 1-2 rows of lamina cells at the margin ; in the former case 
the subula is entire, in the latter it is finely crenulate with the projecting 
transverse walls. The basal cells are shortly and very narrowly rectangular, 
with moderately firm walls, all very pellucid. The inflorescence is autoicous, 
the 3 flower being situated at the base of the fertile flower, and very small. 
The perichaetial bracts are longly subulate from much larger and longer sub- 
convolute bases, and reach two-thirds or more of the length of the seta 
which appears to be slightly curved when moist. The capsules in Brown’s 
or less isodiametrical, and highly incrassate; below they become larger, 
somewhat elongate (rectangular, &c.), and with proportionately at least 
thinner, somewhat sinuose walls. The spores are very minute, smooth. 
The peristome is very fragmentary, but the lower part of the teeth which 
remain are bright reddish-brown, moderately closely barred. 
It is quite possible that this plant may have to be united with S. acutifolia 
var. longiseta Lindb., but at present it is best to keep it apart, in view of 
the possibility of the seta being normally curved. It would appear from 
R. Brown’s description to be widely spread in the South Island, and further 
study should without much difficulty establish its true position. 
I have figured the plant again from the specimens in Brown’s herbarium. 
Burypia Bry. Eur. 
_ The genus Blindia is an especially interesting one for students of New 
Zealand bryology, as it is a distinctively austral genus, having its centre of 
distribution in the subantarctic regions of the Southern Hemisphere. 
thirty-five species listed by Brotherus, thirty have their origin in these 
gions, some few of them extending to New Zealand, Tasmania, and 
northwards from Fuegia along the chain of the Andes; one of the re- 
maining five is found in New Granada, the other four in Europe and 
Asia. 
R. Brown (in Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 29, p. 452) in treating of the New 
Zealand Dicrana, expresses the difficulty he has found in delimiting the 
n 
a; so slight; the former having ovate to cylindrical capsules and the 
peristome united at the base, the latter having turbinate capsules, and in 
the peristome the teeth are free to the base.” He adds that some mosses 
with ovate capsules have been put into Blindia, which leaves him in doubt 
as to the right genus in which to place several of his plants, many of which 
“touch closely on the borderland between the two genera.” He therefore 
places them all, provisionally, under Dicranum. 
In a letter to the Rev. C. H. Binstead, dated November, 1898, the late 
however, as his criticism no doubt is as to some of Brown's methods anc 
of critical acumen, I cannot think that this particular criticism is well 
