BARTRAMIACEAE. 231 
Var. surculigera Dixon in Bull. Torr. Bot. Cl., 42, p. 104 (1915). 
I described this striking variety in the above work. Since then I have 
received a specimen of the same thing from R. Brown’s herbarium, gathered 
in the Port Lyttelton Hills, and undetermined. 
BrevuTELIA Schimp., Coroll., p. 85. 
A genus of fine mosses, differing from Philonotis and Bartramia mostly 
in the habit and the usually more or less yellowish colour, but recognizable 
at once by the leaves, which are always plicate, at reid in the basal part, 
and often above, and are usually of a scarious so ure. The male flowers 
are discoid, and are generally large and conspicuous 
I have made a considerable reduction in the Nee Zealand species in a 
former paper (Journ. Bot., lin, 16), where I have gone into the characters 
in some detail, and I n eed not repeat the arguments here. As a result I 
arrange the Naw Zoulud forms under four species, which may be separated 
thus :— 
ad Very chit very densely foliate, leaves subsecund; habit of 
m clavatum .. 4. elongata. 
| Leaves less Ganiscly arranged, spreading all ‘around the stem. oe 2 
g, J Leaves plicate at base only, sais entire .. re «. 1, affinis. 
Leaves plicate above, serrulate : 
3 fAla cells in several rows, Jax, peta i padh Sften shortly rectangular be sy yiricag ; 
3.-( Alar oat little differentiated, upper all elong ebert. 
1. Breutelia affinis (Hook.) Mitt. in Kew Journ. Bot., 1856, p. 261. 
pe cae affinis Hook., Muse. Exot., t. 176 (1820); Fi. Cason 
ndb. N.Z. FI., ae Bartramia revisa R. . ter 
in Trans. NZ. Inst., vol., 32, . 14] (1899), pin com- 
mutata Hampe in Linn. xl, (1896), p- 307. Breutelia commutata 
Jaeg., Adumbr., i, 702. 
Very distinct from all the other species in the slender habit ; the leaves 
erect and often nse ed when dry, not plicate above ; the strongly recurved 
margin; and the small, generally igen quite pe ndulous capsule. The 
alar cells are very sp orming w baie extending high up the 
leaf, and are not laxer and more palbisid as in B. pendula, but smaller, 
shorter, subquadrate, and usually rather opaque. 
R. Brown (op. cit., p. 138) concludes that the plant of the Handbook 
cannot be the true B. afinis of Hook. Muse. Exot., because the capsule is 
i 
capsules, it is true, are usually ovoid, ioe they vary somewhat in form. I 
have seen a subspherical one on the same tuft with one distinctly ovoid. 
It is partly ‘a question of the i lic < in which they are gathered; the 
capsule shrinks and becomes ovoid unless it is absolutely mature when 
dried ; and overripe capsules also become narrowed. Hooker’s description 
of the capsule is indeed rather misleading. I have examined the type 
specimen, and, while one or two of the capsules are decidedly subspherical 
with distinct neck, others—in fact, the greater number—are decidedly 
elongate, oblong-ovoid. Heoker probably considered these—in view of the 
