— IS — 



data is: "Caucasus: Balta ad flumen Terek ad truncos arborum, 1881, 

 19/5." The Terek River flows through the Russian province of Kabarda 

 into the Caspian Sea. According to Paris' Index the plant is described in 

 Brotherus' Enumeratio Muscorum Caucasi, p. 97. The omission of the date 

 of publication of this Enumeratio by Paris is vexatious. It is, however, safe 

 to infer that it could not well have been published prior to 1881, the year in 

 which the moss was collected. Also since Dr. Brotherus and Dr. S. O. Lind. 

 berg were fellow townsmen and worked together, no doubt, it is natural to 

 assume that the plant in the Bescherelle collection is a part of the type 

 material of Dr. Lindberg's Leskea, seen by the author himself, or certainly 

 that it was determined by Dr. Brotherus and was carefully compared by him 

 with Dr. Lindberg's type, and that an error in determination is hardly possi- 

 ble at the hands of so eminent and thorough a bryologist as Dr. Brotherus. 



Now, this Leskea grandiretis Lindb. looks under the hand-lens strik- 

 ingly like Leskea Austini SuUiv. , which Dr. George N. Best has recently 

 made the type of a new genus, Fabroleskea Austini. A closer microscopic 

 examination of the'leaves of the Russian plant and a comparison with the 

 American plant leaves no doubt as to the identity of Lindberg's and Sulli- 

 vant's species. SuUivant published Leskea Austini in the Supplement to 

 his Icones, p, 81, which bears the date of 1874. Sullivant's name therefore is 

 at least seven years prior to Dr. Lindberg's, and stands, and Leskea grandi- 

 retis Lindb., from the European Caucasus becomes a synonym for Fabro- 

 leskea Austini (^n\Y\Y.)^Q'&'i. 



It is noteworthy in closing this note, that here we have another case of 

 curious distribution ; a plant generally distributed in the northeastern 

 United States turns up in an isolated station in the Russian Caucasus in the 

 remote southeastern corner of Europe, along the banks of a river that flows 

 into an inland sea which is in recent geologic times entirely separated from 

 the oceans, and whose surface lies 84 feet below sea level! Winona, Minn. 



MOUNTING MOSS SPECIMENS. 



Edward B. Chamberlain. 



Recently, while looking over the earlier numbers of The Bryologist, I 

 found several notes upon methods of mounting moss specimens. The most 

 satisfactory method, of course, is one that holds the specimen firmly to the 

 mounting sheet, and at the same time readily permits the transference of 

 the specimen to other sheets without the disfigurement of either the sheet or 

 the specimens. As none of the ways mentioned in The Bryologist seemed 

 to realize this end completely, the description of a method which I have 

 used, may be of interest. 



First, I keep all my mosses in packets, or envelopes, made by folding an 

 oblong piece of stout paper upon itself just below the middle, turning the top 

 flap down, and creasing the ends backwards and underneath. This form of 

 envelope prevents accidental opening and the loss of the specimen. Per- 

 sonally, also, I use standard size mounting sheets, attaching several packets 

 of the same species to each sheet. 



