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OCTODICERAS JULIANUM, ITS PROPAGATION, DISTRIBUTION 



AND HISTORY. 



By E. G. Britton. 

 In the July number of this Journal, Mr. Hill has called attention to the 

 propagation by shoots from the calyptra in this species as recorded by Schim- 

 per and Goebel. This may be more common than is generally supposed, as 

 it is well known that the fruits of this species fall off, just before maturity, 

 and float on the surface, many of them being quite green, with the calyptra 

 still attached. 



In November. 1891, Prof, D. C. Eaton sent me a slide from which the 

 accompanying illustration has been made, showing a shoot arising from the 

 inner part of the calyptra. The specimens had been| kept in an aquarium, 

 and were collected at Hamden, Connecticut, where this species was " abun- 

 dant in a bricked-up spring and also in a 

 barrel fed by a pipe from this spring." 

 Evidently it lives many years in one place 

 for it had been collected in 1877 by Prof. 

 Eaton at the same station. 



The habitat of this species is more va- 

 ried than is indicated by the Manual, and it 

 may be looked for not only " on stones and 

 branches in wooded creeks and swamps," 

 but also in "rocky streams," and in still 

 waters of lakes and ponds, on the border of 

 rivers and in wells and fountains. It has 

 been collected m the Delaware, Ohio, and 

 Tennessee Rivers, and is represented in our 

 collections in eighteen states, ranging from 

 Ontario to Florida, from Minnesota to Lou- 

 isiana, and from Texas to California. There 

 is only one record from the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, in Montana, R. S. Williams, though 

 it was collected by E. Hall, probably in 

 Colorado, 



It was first distributed in 1841 in Drummond's Mosses of the Southern 

 States, as Fissidens semicoinpletus, and it has since been issued in Exsic- 

 catae by Sullivant and Lesquereux, Austin and Macoun. 



Fisside7is seinicompletus Hedw. (Muse, frond. 3: 34, t. 13. 1792) was de- 

 scribed and figured from specimens sent to Hedwig by Dickson, without 

 locality, which Hedwig supposed to be the same as specimens figured by 

 Dillcnius (Hist. Muse. 259, t. 33, Fig. 4, 1741) from Patagonia, and which 

 Dillenius states he had also seen in the herbarium of Wm. Sherard from 

 New Providence, Bahamas. The name has been applied to a Chilian spe- 

 cies by Mitten. Montague called attention to the differences between the 

 figures given by Dillenius and Hedwig, and stated that all doubts could only 

 be removed by restudying the types. As far as can be determined this has 



