A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



Glyphomitrium Daviesii, Bartramia ithyphylla, Webera cruda, Mnium serra- 

 tum, Plagiothecium pulchellum, Habrodon Notarisit, and Hypnum eugyrium. 

 The rare species Ditrichum subulatum appears to find its northern limit in 

 Devon, and several other rare species, although found in N. Wales, Ireland, 

 and warm localities in Scotland, do not, so far as is known, extend further 

 eastward than Devon, such as Fissidens polyphyllus and Tortula canescens. 

 Leptodontium gemmascens and Webera Tozeri, Eurhynchium circinnatum and 

 E. striatulum, are rare except in the southern counties. Only one 

 species, Barbula cordata, recently detected in North Devon by Mr. E. M. 

 Holmes, is found in no other county in Great Britain. Glyphomitrium 

 Daviesii, which is usually confined to basaltic rocks, occurs only on Cocks 

 Tor, which is remarkable as being the only tor of trap rock in the granitic 

 expanse of Dartmoor. Two other rare species have lately been added by 

 Miss C. E. Larter, viz. Barbula gracilis and Pottia commutata. Grimmia 

 montana, so far as England is concerned, has been found only near Fingle 

 Bridge, in Devon. 



The rare Orthodontium gracile, local and rare on sandrocks, and rare 

 on tree stumps, and known outside Britain only in France and California, 

 was found by Mr. E. M. Holmes on a rotten tree stump near Shaugh 

 Bridge. The usually mild winters allow of the development of fruit in 

 many species rarely found in that state, such as Bryum roseum, Breutelia 

 arcuata, Hypnum brevirostre, Brachythecium illecebrum, Heterocladium hetero- 

 pterum, Antitrichia curtipendula, and Zygodon viridissimus. In the limestone 

 districts around Plymouth and Torquay, Trichostomum nitidum forms a 

 prominent feature of the dry stone walls, whilst Eurhynchium circinnatum 

 often covers the rocky banks for many yards. In the reddish soil round 

 Totnes and Newton Abbot, and on the yellow clay slate on the confines 

 of the Moor, Schistostega osmundacea and Epipterygium 'Tozeri (the latter 

 rarely in fruit) , form a characteristic feature of the damp bare hollow 

 portions of the hedge banks, and in similar situations Tortula cuneifolia 

 and Pottia Starkeana often occur in quantity. 



In Jones and Kingston's Flora of Devon, 1829, 175 species are 

 recorded. In ' The Mosses of Devon and Cornwall,' by E. M. Holmes 

 and F. Brent, published in the Transactions of the Plymouth Literary and 

 Scientific Institution in 1887, the number was increased to 306 species, and 

 in the Moss Flora of Devon, by E. Parfitt, a few more species are enume- 

 rated. The list now given includes 336 species, but probably many 

 species will yet be added by subsequent observers.^ 



The species recently added are chiefly due to the investigations of 

 Mr. W. Mitten, Miss C. E. Larter, and Mr. E. M. Holmes, in North 

 Devon ; and to Mr. E. D. Marquand and Mr. L. J. Cocks on Dartmoor 

 and the county generally, and their initials are placed after the rarest of 

 the species. Mr. E. M. Holmes's collection of Devonshire and other 

 mosses is now in the Herbarium of Cambridge University, and the 

 collection of Mr. Parfitt's mosses and other cryptogams has recently been 



1 A list of mosses of the Lynmouth district was published in Science Gossip, Sept. 1900, pp. 99-102, 

 but it contained no species new to the county. 



102 



