SPLACHNACEAE 55 



O. strangulatum Sulliv. Frequent. May-June. 



O. striatum (L.) Hedw. "On red cedars, Palisades, rare," 

 Muse. App. 172. 



Family 14. SPLACHNACEAE 



The mosses of this family are rather short-stemmed with 

 leaves distant and flaccid, with a loose areolation, not papillose. 

 The calyptra is cucullate, or entire and conical. Capsules erect 

 and symmetric, with a very pronounced and characteristic 

 hypophysis, which in some species is so exaggerated as to 

 become a striking natural curiosity The peristome is single 

 in all our species. The teeth are often united in pairs or more 

 rarely in fours, much as in Orthotrichum, and are sometimes 

 reflexed as in that genus. The hypophysis is well supplied with 

 stomata and is made up of loose tissue well adapted for the 

 assimilation of carbon dioxide. 



The mosses of this family nearly all grow upon decaying 

 animal tissue or upon animal excreta, more rarely upon decay- 

 ing vegetable matter, and this, taken in connection with the 

 peculiar hypophysis, makes fertile plants unmistakable. The 

 flaccid leaves, with their loose areolation, distinguish sterile 

 forms from most mosses except, perhaps, the Funariaceae and 

 Meeseaceae. 



TETRAPLODON B. & S. 



T. australis S. & L. "On excrement of herbivorous animals 

 in the cedar swamps of southern N. J., frequent," Muse. App. 

 177. 



Splachnum ampullaceum L. is reported from Quaker Bridge, Burlington 

 Co., in Geol. Survey N. J. 



Family 15. FUNARIACEAE 



Plants annual, sometimes biennial, growing on soil that is 

 bare or sparsely covered with other vegetation, rather short 

 with large wide soft leaves much like those of the last family, 

 usually having a well developed costa extending, in most cases, 

 well toward the apex. The leaf cells are parenchymatous, 



