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SOME NOTES ON COLLECTING. 



Within the past three years I have discovered the haunts of several of 

 the minute species of mosses on my collecting trips, such as Archidiuin 

 Ohioense, Phascum sp., P leitriditim subitlatinn, Astominn sp,, Ephemeriim 

 crassinervium, Physconiitrmin iinmersttin, Pyraniiditla tetragona, and 

 Bruchia fiexuosa. 



Six of these beautiful little plant species I found in the close vicinity of 

 Winona, where I had collected for over fifteen years. This fact, linked with 

 the other fact that these and similar minute mosses are in late years very 

 little represented in collections, leads me to suspect that our younger gener- 

 ation of moss students, including myself, have yet to learn where and when 

 to look for them. Having by chance stumbled upon the hiding places of 

 these little elves, not merely sporadic patches but the regular haunts, it has 

 occurred to me that it might be profitable for the more enthusiastic collec- 

 tors of the Sullivant Chapter, and for all interested, to learn where and 

 when I found these mosses. 



The Ephe})iernm and P hyscomitrium I found associated together sev- 

 eral years ago on the shaded edge of a Mississippi slough, where weeds and 

 grass do not come up to furnish excess of shade. The months are October 

 and November. Since then I have annually looked for them on my Novem- 

 ber tramps through the river bottoms and most always I bring home some 

 Ephemerum and its protonema. The Physcomitrium is more freaky, and is 

 not easily found, apparently depending for its best development upon more 

 exact seasonal conditions. 



The Archidiuin, Phascum, P leuridium and Astomuni, I found first two 

 years ago on the top of our bluffs 450 feet above the level of the Mississippi 

 bottoms, on slightly north-facing surfaces, which during early summer be- 

 come covered with a scant growth of grass, but which the dry autumn 

 leaves again practically bare for the winter snows. The outcrop of Mag- 

 nesian limestone weathered to fragments near the tops of the bluffs are 

 there mantled over by a thin sheet of modified drift clay, or possibly it is 

 simply wind-blown clay, which I doubt, blackened with the mould of the 

 scant vegetation. It is in this situation that these little mosses have their 

 home, starting their annual life effort under the melting snows. By a mere 

 chance I stumbled upon them where I never thought it possible for any- 

 thing worth looking for to exist, on one of my late March bluff rambles, 

 when the roads were still muddy from snow-water. Repeated visits (for I 

 am less than a mile from the spot at this writing, January) showed that the 

 fruits ripen rapidly ; and after the middle of April they soon show signs of 

 weathering, and shortly seem to disappear altogether, the ground receiving 

 now too much heat for their existence. Indeed the drouth has the past two 

 seasons come on so rapidly that in case of Astomum only a few of the 

 abundantly set capsules actually ripened spores. 



The Pyramidula I found in June, igor, in the upper Mississippi valley, 

 in scant soil, probably windblown, in the shallow depressions of the water- 

 worn granitic outcrops of that interesting region. It was very abundant 



