

PREFACE 



Although New York City is one of the principal botanical 

 centers of the United States and of the world and has an insti- 

 tution within its borders that has paid special attention to 

 bryophytes, I know of no formal list of its moss flora; I believe 

 none has been published. 



On the other hand, materials for such a list are abundant and 

 the large number of people in the city interested in science, 

 either as a profession or diversion, will certainly give a wide 

 field of usefulness to a carefully prepared list arranged in a help- 

 ful manner. Such a list will also stimulate investigation into our 

 rapidly vanishing moss flora, and put on scientific record facts of 

 natural history that will soon have vanished beyond the possi- 

 bility of record or recall. 



Probably no other region in the country has had so careful 

 a bryological survey as the late C. F. Austin made of that part 

 of New Jersey lying around Closter. In New Jersey the mosses 

 of the North and those of the South meet, and it seems to one 

 who scans Austin's work with care that he found there almost 

 all the mosses of Eastern North America. Any one who can 

 now duplicate ninety per cent, of his collections in this region 

 may reckon himself a past master in collecting, and one who 

 discovers a moss in this region that Austin overlooked can 

 congratulate himself on his luck. 



The area to be included in this list is not to be defined clearly 

 and definitely. All counties of New York and New Jersey lying 

 adjacent to the city are of course included. In the main, 

 localities outside this will be given only for rare or unusual mosses 

 that do not occur within these limits or are very infrequent. An 

 exception will be mace in the case of Long Island, as all avail- 

 able information concerning that area will be included. 



For fifteen years the author has made a careful study, in the 

 field, of the mosses of eastern Long Island and of Staten Island, 

 in addition to the work already done by others whose names are 



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