The Thread-Mosses. 161 



two, and sometimes even three inches in length, and having a 

 lurid green appearance at the summit, and usually matted 

 together by twining purplish radicles, which are copiously 

 produced among the leaves, giving a thick woolly aspect to 

 the dry specimens, and somewhat of a woolly sensation to the 

 touch. These stems are more or less branched, and the leaves 

 are spreading, widely so, on the young shoots; the lower ones 

 distant, the terminal crowded and more erect, slightly twisted 

 and erect in the dry state ; ovate-lanceolate in form, somewhat 

 decurrent, entire or slightly serrated at the apex, and sub- 

 marginate, the nerve varying in length, usually more or less 

 excurrent, the lower ones blackish or reddish-brown, the upper 

 of a greener hue. The reddish-brown fruit-stalk, like the stem, 

 varying in length from one to three inches, and bearing the 

 more or less oblong pyriform capsule, with its concave apicu- 

 late, glossy lid; the capsule of a pale brownish or yellowish- 

 brown colour, constricted below the mouth when dry, and 

 having a dehiscent annulus. 



A variety of this species, termed cuspidatum, from its leaves 

 having longer bristly points, grows in dryer situations, on 

 walls, etc., and assumes so different an aspect, that, but for 

 the difference of the inflorescence, it might be mistaken for 

 Bryum pollens. Its leaves, as well as having longer bristly 

 points, are of a more lively green, and the capsules are attached 

 to shorter fruit-stalks. From B. ccespiticium it is distinguished 

 by its pale roundish-pyriform capsules, and its synoicous inflo- 

 rescence. 



Bryum Marratii, Marrafs blunt-leaved thread-moss , has a 

 monoicous inflorescence, and fruits in September, and speci- 

 mens may still be obtained early in October. It was first 

 found in 1854, by Mr. Marrat, of Liverpool, whose name it 

 bears. The flat sandy shore at Southport, Lancashire, is named 

 as its habitat. Its stems are gregarious, sparingly radiculose, 

 about a quarter of an inch or more in length, bearing rather 

 large leaves, of a light green colour and a soft pellucid texture, 

 more or less spreading, concave, elliptical, obtuse, entire, and 

 scarcely reflexed at the margin; those of the perichetium 

 narrower, longer, and suberect. The capsule is roundish, at 

 first of an olive colour and shining, but when ripe reddish- 

 brown, with a small mouth covered by a rostellate lid, about 

 one-third of the length of the capsule, a large annulus, and a 

 neck tapering into the fruit-stalk, which is reddish, and about 

 an inch long. The teeth of the outer peristome are trabeculate 

 externally, of a deep red colour, connivent into a cone, and 

 remain unaltered when dry ; the inner peristome is imperfect 

 and adherent to the outer, the spores are large and yellowish, 

 and the inflorescence monoicous or often synoicous. 



