1 



I 



I 



The question of distribution touches the broader question of the limits of 

 a bryologically interesting plant-geographical area. The classical California 

 station was "near Mendocino City" (Bolander). M. A. Howe has also since 

 collected it in Mendocino County. This county represents the southern limit, 

 so far as known at present. Brewer's station from the Sierra Nevada near 

 King's River, evidently in Fresno County farther south and east, is still included 

 by Warnstorf (191 1), but the plant is as we have seen, S. subsecundum. There 

 is little probability that it extends much, if any, further southward or inland 

 than Mendocino County. Northeastward it has been collected in northern 

 Idaho. In Oregon and Washington it is frequent and apparently characteristic 

 The same is true of Vancouver Island. Its range inland in British Columbia is 

 entirely vague. An S. alaskanum Warnstorf occurs in literature as more or less 

 of a nomen nudum,^'^ only to be finally reduced to synonymy by its author^^ 

 with var. gracilescens of S. mendocinum. As however he cites no Alaskan locality 

 it must be inferred that the name rested upon some original misunderstanding 

 of the locality in which the specimen was found, and there is no authority to 

 include Alaska in its range, though it may perhaps yet he found that the species 

 extends into the southern panhandle of that territory. The earliest collection 

 of it is probably that of Douglas, a specimen of which in the Mitten herbarium 

 is labeled only "Northwest America. "^^ It probably does not fall without the 

 geographical limits otherwise known. S. cuspidaium seems to be entirely lacking 

 within its range, while 5. subsecundum is hardly as common as one might reason- 

 ably expect. 



The working out of my notes on 5. mendocinum brings out an interesting 

 additional fact in connection with a species treated before. Some years ago 

 while examining rather hurriedly the Sphagnum specimens of the James 

 herbarium at Harvard University I noted a specimen named S. cuspidaium 

 collected by John Macoun at Portage La Loche, Northwestern Territory, in 

 September, 1875, which was irregular and which I thought might be S. mendo- 

 cinum, though the locality undoubtedly lies outside the range of the latter species. 

 Macoun 's lists do not record even 5. cuspidaium from Portage La Loche, but do 

 include S. recurvum^^ with several other less closely related species from there. 

 Through the kindness of Mr. M. O. Malte, Honorary Curator of the Ottawa 

 herbarium, I have recently seen the specimen of 6". recurvum, originally labeled 

 S. cuspidaium, from Portage La Loche, collected Sept. 15, 1875. Most of the 

 tutt, including the fruiting plants, is 5. recurvum, as named. There is a single 

 plant of S. squarrosum adhering to the outside of the tuft, while intimately 

 intermixed with the S. recurvum is another species, which is evidently the same 

 that I had thought might be S. mendocinum. Staining of the leaves and section- 



1^ Kryptogamenflora der Mark Brandenburg, I, 356. 1903. 



18 Pflaftzenreich 51: 197. 1911 



Cf. also Warnstorf, Pflanzenreich 51: 197. 1911. 



20 Catalogue of Canadian Plants, VI, 5. 1892. Portage La Loche at latitude 57" N. is, I 

 assume, in the vicinity of Fort La Loche in what is now northern Saskatchewan, not tar from the 

 boundary of Alberta. 



