17G The Phascums, or Earth Mosses. 



of a reddish colour, thick texture, and is seated on a short, 

 thick pedicel ; the columella distinct ; calyptra very small, erect, 

 campanulate, covering only the apex of the capsule; spoi'es 

 small, smooth, and round. Barren flower gemmiform at the 

 base of the fertile ; antheridia without paraphyses. 



Phascam Floerheannm, or Floerke's dwarf earth-moss, also 

 fruits in September and November. It grows upon clayey or 

 chalky soil, but is less readily discovered than its allies, not 

 merely from its minuteness, being only about one-twentieth of 

 an inch in height, but also from the absence of greenness, its 

 colour being brownish, and scarcely different from that of the 

 soil on which it grows. It is found in scattered patches, has 

 scarcely any stem, and few, but crowded leaves, the lower ones 

 very small and nerveless, the upper ones larger, with an ex- 

 current nerve, concave, slightly recurved at the point, and with 

 a reflexed margin. The areola) small and rhomboid. 



The capsule, which is entirely covered by the leaves, is of a 

 reddish-brown, roundish-ovate in shape, with a thick blunt 

 beak or point, one-third of its own length, and seated on a very 

 short, thick pedicel. The calyptra is sub-conical, sometimes, 

 but not often, cloven on one side. The barren flower is axillary, 

 and the antheridia naked; the spores small, pale, and numerous. 



Most beautiful is the foliage of P. cohcerens, fruiting in the 

 winter, and also bearing an immersed sub-sessile capsule. The 

 leaves are erect, carinate, ovate-lanceolate, usually nerved to 

 the apex ; but sometimes the nerve is wanting, or incomplete : 

 the areola) of the leaf, however, as seen through the microscope, 

 present the appearauce of a symmetrical network, and all the 

 upper part of the leaf is serrated. 



Among the larger members of the family are P. altcrni- 

 foli/u/m and P. mmUcapsula/re, both somewhat rare, or over- 

 looked, and both fruiting in the spring. 



Other members of the family havo exserted capsules, as 

 P. rectum, /'. bryoidee, P. nitidum, and P. curvicollum. Of 

 these, /'. rectum, or the Straight-necked earth-moss, bears its 

 fruit in winter, and on a straight elongated pedicel. P. ct*r- 

 uicollum, or the Swan-necked earth-moss, has an exserted 

 cernuous* capsule on a curved elongated pedicel. P. niUd/wm, 

 or Delicate earth-moss, grows on moist bunks, or 011 tho dried 

 sediment of* shallow pools; the height of its stem one to six 

 lines, erect, simple or branched, with new growths, like supple- 

 mentary extensions <>f the stem, immediately below the fertilo 

 llower, each of these extensions bearing another fertile flower, 

 and in time another, so that sometimes several capsules in 

 different stages may be found at intervals along the stem, 

 giving it the appearance of being pleurocarpous, or lateral 

 * Bending forward ; from et rneo, to stoop with the face forward. 





