106 Mosses — Grimmia and Schistidium. 



also is invaluable ; for who would speak, or be looked on, 

 when behind him lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except 

 the watchmen; and before him, the silent immensity, and 

 Palace of the Eternal, whereof our sun is but a porch lamp ! " 



MOSSES— GKIMMIA AND SCHISTIDIUM. 



BY M. G. CAMPBELL. 



While the " Fair Maids of February,"* the " admired of all 

 beholders," tremble on our hedge-banks, and hang their modest 

 heads, as if anxious to shun the gaze they cannot but attract, 

 the elegant Grimmia orbicularis, or round-fruited Grimmia, 

 still more worthy of regard, may be found, albeit all unnoted, 

 spreading its dense tufts upon calcareous rocks, sometimes, 

 mixed with its cousin of more common occurrence, Grimmia 

 pulvinaia, or the grey -cushioned Grimmia; and sometimes in 

 compact family groups, braving alone the storms of its 

 weather-beaten home. 



The genus named in honour of Grimm, a German botanist, 

 consists of perennial mosses, allied at once to Schistidium and 

 to Racomitrium. They grow upon rocks and walls, some- 

 times in compact tufts, sometimes loosely, and irregularly 

 csespitose, with capsules which vary much both in form and 

 position, being in some species immersed and shortly pedi- 

 cellate, in others, excerted, erect, cernuous, or pendulous, on 

 a straight or on a curved pedicel, solitary, and with a mitriform 

 calyptra reaching below the lid ; sometimes five lobed at the 

 base; sometimes dimidiate, or cloven on one side. The inflo- 

 rescence is monoicous or dioicous ; at first both flowers are 

 terminal, but at length, by growth of the stem, the gemmiform 

 barren flower becomes lateral. 



The leaves are semi-amplexical and imbricated at the base, 

 while they spread in the upper parts, and generally terminato 

 in a longer or shorter semi-transparent white hair-point, 

 usually denticulate ; the upper leaves largest and tufted at the 

 summit of the stem. The peristome consists of sixteen rather 

 largo lanceolato teeth, convex externally, and trabcculated ; 

 bitrifid, spreading, or sub-erect when dry; cither purplish, 

 pale red, or yellowish brown, and slightly hygroscopic. The 

 columella instead (if being deciduous and falling off with the 

 lid, as it does in ScMstidixm, shrinks up into, and remains in, 

 the ripe capsule, a circumstance which forms the chief 

 difference between Qrvmmda and ScMstidi/wm; the latter might 

 therefore be classed as a sub-genus of (jirimmia, with a 

 # The Snowdrop— Galanihus nivalis. 



