Fergusson : Fontinalis gracilis, &c. 



105 



discovery so[ interesting and creditable to its finders, if they did not. 

 It was lately shown at the Linnsean Society by Mr. E. M. Holmes. 

 This is stated in the AtJienmm of Dec. 1 1 th, or thereabouts. 



FONTINALIS GRACILIS, Lind., &c. 

 Rev. J. FERGussoisr. 



Fontinalis gracilis. — When I accidentally mentioned .to Dr. 

 Lees that in 1876 Professor Barker had gathered Fontinalis gracilis at 

 Malham Cove, I also mentioned that so far as I was aware it was new 

 to Yorkshire. Had I then supposed that Dr. Lees was to have 

 recorded it in the Naturalist as a moss not known to be a native of 

 Britain until it was detected at Malham Cove, I should, in all proba- 

 bility, have given him some information as to its British history and 

 distribution. Such information may still be new and interesting to 

 Mm, and to others also, and I accordingly send it to you for publica- 

 tion. 



I believe the first notice which is given of this plant as a native of 

 Britain is contained in Wilson's " Bryologia Britannica," where it is 

 stated on page 424 — " Two varieties of this {F. antipyretica), if not 

 distinct species, are found in Britain ; one of them with more slender, 

 fasciculate, not spreading branches, and less complicated leaves, found 

 near Dublin and in Scotland, but we have not seen any specimen in 

 fruit. It is probably var. ^ minor, and is often mistaken for F. 

 squamma, from which the carinate leaves will always distinguish it." 

 These remarks, so far as they go, give a very accurate and character- 

 istic description of Fontinalis gracilis, and should be sufficient to enable 

 one to distinguish it from our other British species of the genus. 



In July, 1866, Messrs. Roy, Bisset, and myself, when botanising in 

 Glen-Prosen, discovered there a barren Fontinalis, which Mr. Roy (the 

 only one of us who knew one moss from another) supposed to be F. 

 squamosa ; and in the following year I again gathered the same plant in 

 a barren state, and sent it to Mr. Wilson, who, with his usual caution, 

 declined to say whether it was anything but a mere variety of F. anti- 

 pyretica, unless fruit were found and proved to be difi'erent from that 

 of the other. In 1868 or 1869 (I am not quite sure as to the date) 

 the Rev. Mr. Anderson found the plant with abundance of fruit, and 

 submitted it to Mr. Wilson, who then pronounced it to be a distinct 

 species, and gave it the name of F. subglohosa. He was too late in 



