— 41 — 



. in the loaning of specimens from Kindberg's herbarium, as of their mosses gener- 

 ally. The slowly progressing moss-volume of "North American Flora" should 

 bring final clarity as to Kindberg's names; they are on the other hand undoubt- 

 edly one of the impediments to its progress. However, light follows darkness, 

 Macoun's moss-collecting remains a great achievement, and the call to American 

 bryologists for more and better work is an imperative one. 

 Ithaca, N. Y. 



LITTLE JOURNEYS INTO MOSSLAND 



IV — Luminous Moss 

 George B. Kaiser 



To many of us the quest of Schistostega osmundacea has been fraught with 

 frequent memorable adventurings into the pleasantest by-ways of Nature. 



In The Bryologist (Volume V, page 52) J. Warren Huntingdon tells us how 

 he discovered this moss "on one of those splendid hillsides which we may find in 

 any hill town of New Hampshire," saying, further, "I came to a mass of rocks 

 tilted together in such a way as to form something like a cave; looking down this 

 fissure into the semi-darkness, I saw a little circle of light about a foot in diameter. 

 Thinking this might be some decaying matter that gave out phosphorescent 

 light, I examined some of it and found I had a very delicate frond-like moss * * 



* * this is the way I found the 'Leuchtmoos. ' " 



Dr. A. J. Grout, in the same volume of The Bryologist, on page 103, re- 

 lates how he found bits of Schistostega in a cave known as "Devil's Den" at the 

 top of Mt. Prospect, in Holderness, N. H., and later, "on the soil and stones of 

 the underpinning of an old shed in Newfane, Vt., on the farm adjoining the one 

 where I spent my youth and childhood, and in the very place where I had often 

 played hide and seek. * * * Here were square inches, almost square feet, of 

 the glistening protonema, whose brilliancy could only be seen by stooping until 

 one looked in upon it at the same level as the entering rays of light. 



Like many others, we long ago began eagerly to peer into every dim cave and 

 under every overhanging rock that we encountered on our excursions in the hope 

 that we might observe that beautiful shimmering light which is reflected from 

 the protonema of the Luminous Moss. The search long remained a vain one. 

 In 1909, indeed, our hopes ran high when we had the pleasure of spending several 

 days on the summit of Mt. Mansfield, Vt. Dr. Grout, in 1906, had visited the 

 mountain in company with the Vermont Botanical Club (The Bryologist, Vol. 

 X, p.6) and had then found Schistostega to be "abundant in the deep clefts in 

 overhanging rocks on the northeast -side of the mountain, below a point in the 

 road about a quarter of a mile from the hotel" and, also, "in a crevice about ten 

 feet to the left of the cave on the north side of the ' Nose '. " A guest at the Sum- 

 mit House well remembered the bryological feats of Dr. Grout, declaring that 

 *'he would often risk life and limb to get the moss he was after." Now, whether 



