— 11 — 



While in the damper parts of the house this hepatic grows with ordinary 

 luxuriance, in the higher, more nearly dry parts, the thallus is a little 

 smaller, the characteristic, crescent-shaped gemmae cups less numerous. In 

 this dryer portion, the first week in April I found many of the little white 

 tufts, until then quite new to me. 



Examination under a microscope showed a tiny green center so small 

 that I could not be sure of its nature, though^Dr. Howe's descriptions, — " ? 

 receptacle arising from a deep sinus of the thallus, surrounded when young 

 and sessile by a tubular-ovate sheath, consisting of numerous scales, the in- 

 ner of these membraneous, hyaline, ciliate-fimbriate " — suited exactly. 



Two weeks later I again visited the lath-house. By this time the tufts 

 had doubled in size and there were many androecii, full sized but not quite 

 mature. In another week the young archegonia were distinctly four-parted 

 and rounded. Evidently many of them had been fertilized. Some of those 

 that I had taken home and put under glass had grown, but not nearly as 

 much as the undisturbed ones. 



On the 9th of May I found eleven perfected " fruits" in the lath-house, 

 and many approaching perfection. Of one, indeed, the capsules had burst, 

 the spores were gone, and only a few brown threads of elaters still clung to 

 the ends of the valves. 



It is a beautiful thing, — the "delicate, pellucid, pilose peduncle" with 

 the four or five tubular segments each tipped with a pendant brown capsule 

 — infinitely more lovely than any printed description or dried herbarium 

 specimen could tell. Niles, California. 



BRYOLOQICAL HILLINERY. 



By Cora H. Clarke. 



I wonder if the members of the Sullivant Moss Chapter have seen bon- 

 nets and hats made of real moss? An enterprising member of a Boston 

 Botanical Class went to Jordan and Marsh's to investigate the matter, and 

 found, on the counter where fancy braids of various material were sold for 

 the composition of hats and bonnets, two styles of moss braid. One was in 

 the shape of a green band, nearly three inches wide, the price of which was 

 25 cts. a yard. Examining this at our Botany Group, we discovered it to be 

 composed of sprigs of moss two or three inches long, with short side 

 branches. These sprigs were evidently laid side by side and then fastened 

 together by nine rows of coarse stitching, running the length of the band, 

 and done with coarse cotton thread. (I wonder that green thread was not 

 used for this purpose). When we picked some bits out and examined the 

 moss, we found that it resembled H. Schreberi, but without the red stem — it 

 agreed very nicely with the description of Hypnum purum, a species which 

 does not occur in this country, but we found it described in " Dixon." In a 

 yard of the band, we found but two fruits. 



The other preparation of moss looks like a long cord of green chenille, 

 not quite half an inch in diameter. It sells for ten cents a yard. The bits 

 of brown moss mixed with the green are a darker brown than those of the 



