214 BRYOLOGY OF NEW ZEALAND. 
17. Bryum Nar Br. & Schimp., Bry. eur., iv, tab. 358 (1839) ; 
Handb. N.Z. F1., p. 441. 
Readily known oi the leaves, which are strongly spirally a 
when dry, from all but certain forms of the last species, and from that by 
the synoicous inflorescence, and the deep reddish-brown ca ale 
unlike that of B. chrysoneuron, but larger, longer, narrower, with still more 
tapering, somewhat curved neck, and larger li 
d B. obconicum differ in the dioicous inflorescence and 
usually paler, brown capsule. 
. torquescens is not uncommon. Like the preceding species, it is a 
plant of dry habitats. 
9. Rosulata. 
18. Bryum Billardieri Schwaegr., Suppl., i, pt. 2, p. 115 (1816); Fl. 
N.Z., ii, 86; Handb. N.Z. Fl., p. 439. 
Syn. B. Nery H. f. & W., Fl. Tasm., ii 192 (1880); Handb. N.Z. 
Fl., p. 489. B. Searlii R. Br. ter. in Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 31, 
p. 159 (1899) 
A good deal of confusion has been brought into this group by the state- 
ment of the author and of C. Mueller (Syn., i, 253, 254), looked upon as 
ese eegerla and copied by several subsequent: authors, that B. Billardiert 
has the leaves unbordered. os however, is not the case. By the 
Schwaegrichen’s type, collected in ‘‘ Novo Belgio.” This shows the leaves 
quite distinctly bordered with two to three rows of narrow-linear, incrassate, 
brownish cells. The leaves are not markedly comose and not rosulate ; 
they are suberect and very little spreading when moist, when dry contracted 
and somewhat twisted, but not markedly altered in position. The margin 
is strongly recurved to about three-fourths of the length of the leaf. The 
leaves are not decurrent, oblong-ovate or very slightly obovate (a little the 
4-6 
branches with stouter nerve and smaller cells (10-12 wide and 4-5 x 1), 
with firm, rather incrassate walls. he nerve is excurrent in a short, 
often recurved, cuspidate point. 
The single capsule was overmature and old, pendulous, and rather 
strongly incurved. 
__ The difference between it and B. truncorum is therefore not to be expressed 
acid describing B. Billardieri as unbordered. The difference from what may 
be considered the typical form of B. truncorum is very marked ; but there 
are less well marked forms of both, and in these cases it may not be at all 
a! to separate them, and the plant dseeitliod by H. f. & W. as B. rufescens 
is so intermediate between the two that it is not at all easy te say to which, 
if either, it should: be united. There is, in fact, an almost unbroken 
gradation from the weaker forms of B. Billardieri, with faint border an 
equally foliate branches, to the stoutest forms corum, with 
evade the difficulty by describing the various forms as species (B. rufescens, 
B. microrhodon C. M., &e.), but it is doubtful. whether anything is gained by 
ae . 
os f 
ae 
