82 



The NA.TUEALIST. 



notice in it a plant which I at once recognised as Coscinodon cribrosus, 

 the G. pulvinatus of Sprengel and of modern authors — an immensely 

 interesting addition to our British list. For some years I had been 

 expecting that this species (whose geographical position ranges from 

 mid-N"orv/ay to South Italy, and from the Pyrenees to the Tyrol 

 Mountains) should some day be discovered in Britain ; but I had 

 fancied that it would have been reported from our Scottish mountains 

 rather than from the English Coniston, where Prof. Barker found it 

 in April, 1867. In connexion with this announcement of its occur- 

 rence in Britain it may be allowable to make one or two statements 

 about its early history. 



It was first gathered by Persoon, near Goslar, in Hercynia, and 

 named Grimmia crihrosa by Hedwig in his great work " Descriptio et 

 Adumbratio Muscorum Frondosorum,'^ published in the years 1787-97. 

 In 1804 Sprengel removed it from the genus Grimmia to Coscinodon, 

 a genus specially created for its reception, and essentially characterised 

 by the remarkably cribrose condition of the peristome. When placing 

 it in this genus he substituted the new specific name of pulvinatus for 

 the earlier name given by Hedwig — a proceeding not permissible in 

 the circumstances — and thus Grimmia cribrosa, Hedw., became Cosci- 

 nodon pulvinatus, Sprengel. The " Bryologia Europcea " and most 

 modern authors have adopted the latter name in its entirety, but 

 Spruce, C. Miiller, and De Notaris, while recognising the necessity of 

 the generic change, have rightly adhered to the original specific name 

 given to the plant by Hedwig. A description of this interesting species 

 is appended. 



BR YUM RUFUM (PEOBABLY A VARIETY OF B. ARCTICUM). 



Tufts loose^ dark brown. Stems slender, innovating, four or five lines 

 long, with few radicles. Leaves enlarged towards the top of the stem, 

 where they form a gemmiform tuft, all of them brownish, twisted 

 when dry, patent, then incurved from about the middle ; the lower 

 ones ovate acute, with scarcely recurved margin and nerve ending in or 

 just beyond the apex ; the upper ones ovate lanceolate, carinato-concave, 

 never red at the base, with quite entire recurved margins and a narrow 

 border of two or three rows of cells. Nerve yellowish-brown when old 

 excurrent into a perfectly smooth yellowish point. Inner perichaetial 

 leaves minute, irregularly lanceolate with wide cells and sub-excurrent 

 nerve. Cells mostly without chlorophyl, rather wide, hexagonal in 

 the upper part of the leaf, rectangular at the base. Capsule pendulous, 

 at length looking upwards owing to the curvature of the summit of 



