The Thread-Mosses. 157 



its neck not tapering, but abruptly passing into the fruit-stalk, 

 beautifully symmetrical and pendulous. 



Bryum Zierii, or the Zierian thread-moss, also ripens its 

 fruit in October and November. It grows in the crevices of 

 rocks on the mountains of England, Scotland, Wales, and 

 Ireland, planting them with its soft, pale, or silvery reddish, 

 rather lax tufts, composed of stems from half an inch to an 

 inch long, with julaceous, or slender glossy branches, whitish 

 above and reddish below, somewhat resembling the last species 

 in aspect, but larger, and always having a considerable tinge 

 of red ; the leaves are imbricated, roundish ovate in form, very 

 concave, acuminate, entire, the margin not reflexed, but the 

 apex, below which the nerve ceases, slightly recurved, the 

 leaves of thin, membranous texture, the lower ones reddish, 

 the upper longer and narrower, with the nerve extending 

 nearer to the apex, and the reticulation loose. The capsule is 

 more or less cernuous, large, of a reddish brown colour, clavato- 

 pyriform, and gibbous on the upper side, with a long, tapering 

 incurved neck, rendering the mouth oblique. The small 

 conical, acute lid covers an unequal peristome, the inner being 

 longer than the outer, and having only rudimentary cilia, or 

 none at all ; the spores are rather large and brownish, and the 

 mouth of the capsule, tenacious of its nurslings while within 

 the enclosure, becomes enlarged after their exit. The fruit- 

 stalk is arcuate at the summit, and scarcely half an inch in 

 leugth. Its more robust size, large and singular capsule, with 

 the vinous hue of its foliage, sufficiently distinguish this in- 

 teresting species from its nearest ally, B. argenteum. Both 

 have a dioicous inflorescence. 



Bryum demissum, or the club-fruited threoA-moss, is not 

 unlike B. Zierii in the form of its capsule, which is similarly 

 oblique-mouthed, but its foliage, except in colour, resembles 

 that of B. coesjjiticium. It is also altogether of a more compact 

 and dwarfish habit than B. Zierii, its stems scarcely reaching 

 a quarter of an inch in height, bound together by the small 

 radiculose fibres which cover them, and the short innovations 

 and branches which they put forth. The capsule, too, has a 

 shorter neck, a more oblique mouth, an inner peristome pro- 

 portionally longer, with irregular segments variously united, 

 and short, mostly solitary cilia. Its leaves are reddish, but in 

 other respects too closely resembling our common species 

 B, coesjyiticium to require a separate description. It is very 

 beautiful, and one of our rarer species, found only in the 

 fissures of rocks in exposed situations ; has been met with upon 

 Craigalleach and other summits of the Breadalbane range, 

 and fruits in August and September. Its inflorescence is 

 dioicous. 



