Cash : The late Mr. William Wilson, 



211 



Mr. Bowman's attention. The moss was considered very rare at the 

 time of which I write. Only a few stations for it had been discovered. 

 In one of his letters to Mr. Bowman, Mr. Wilson enclosed a specimen 

 of the rare Baltonia splachnoides \ Mr. Bowman, in return, sent his 

 friend a specimen of what he described as " the not less rare " Sclm- 

 tostega pennata. 



But, with regard to the " shining moss," so called ; on the 21st of 

 May, 1831, Mr. Wilson made an examination of specimens sent him 

 by Mr. Bowman, and saw reason to suspect their true nature. On the 

 23rd he made this entry in his journal : " Examined the shining moss 

 of Eowter Cavern, and fully satisfied myself of its being a confervoid 

 state of Schistostega pennata, of which I detected an example in a state 

 of transition from one to the other ; and made drawings." He wrote 

 Mr. Bowman an account of what he had seen, enclosing the specimen 

 between talcs, displayed for his examination, and also with drawings 

 copied from his (Mr. Wilson's) own sketches. Again, on the 24th of 

 May, he observed several other instances of young ScJdstostega plants 

 with confervoid shoots from the base of the stem. He prepared a 

 drawing of this, at Mr. Bowman's request, for the Magazine of Nat. 

 History. 



There had been a controversy as to the splitting of the lid in 

 Schistostega ; Mr. Wilson had made it a matter of careful investigation, 

 and his conclusions are stated at length in " Bryologia Britannica." 

 It may not be uninteresting to quote the following extract from a letter 

 addressed to him by Sir Wm. Hooker, and dated June 5th, 1831 : — 



" Your account of the examination of Schidostega has gratified me 

 very much. It has proved the fallacy of Hedwig's character of the 

 operculum most satisfactorily. Now, must this genus be restored to 

 Gymnostomum ? Assuredly, as genera are at present defined — derived 

 wholly from the fructification, it cannot be separated ; yet, if foliage 

 and habit be taken into account, and the nature, too, of the operculum, 

 Schistostega may well be distinguished from every other moss, and I 

 should wish to keep it separate, though with another name ; so I should 

 like to have Fissidens distinguished from Dicranumy 



In closing this communication I will only mention a few other 

 mosses and hepatics which Mr. Wilson records having gathered in 

 Cheshire, between the years 1831 and 1836. 



- In July, 1831, he visited a place called Sinks Moss, near Knutsford, 

 in order to gather Malaxis paludosa, but returned home unsuccessful. 

 The place was partly enclosed and cultivated. He, however, gathered 

 Splachnum ampullaceum^ a moss which seems to have been more common 



