THE NORTH OF ENGLAND HARPIDIA 



(AFTER RENAULD). 



J. A. WHELDON, F.L.S., 



Liverpool. 



The past decade has w itnessed a great accession of interest in 

 British Bryology, and the path of the student of our mosses has 

 been smoothed by the publication of the greater portion of 

 Dr. Braithwaite's splendid ' British Moss Flora ' and' Mr. H. N. 

 Dixon's indispensable ' Handbook of British Mosses.' In 

 addition the ' Moss Exchange Club ' affords a means of ex- 

 changing notes and specimens, and its beginners' section holds 

 out a helping hand to the less advanced members. 



With all these facilities the increased interest is not sur- 

 prising, and there is reason to hope that in the future more 

 attention, will be devoted to the larger critical genera, such 

 as Sphagnum, and the subjects of the present paper. Much 

 remains to be done in identifying our forms with those described 

 by Continental botanists, and in tracing their comital distribution 

 in the British Isles. The lists of localities in Mr. Horrell's 

 * European Sphagnaceae ' afford a useful starting-point for the 

 former, but none of our books deal at all exhaustively with the 

 latter. In this paper I propose to deal with the Harpidia of 

 the Northern Counties of England only, as my knowledge of the 

 remaining counties and their botanical workers is very limited. 

 I am very largely indebted to Mons. Renauld for much of the 

 information given below — not only to his masterly exposition of 

 these plants in his 'Monograph of Harpidium ' in Husnot's 

 4 Muscologia Gallica ' (which I have freely quoted from), but 

 also for many critical notes and much labour in verifying and 

 naming specimens. Mr. H. N. Dixon has also rendered me 

 much assistance, and has not only named or confirmed the 

 names of specimens, but has frequently kindly supplied interest- 

 ing examples for comparison. 



It was thought unnecessary to figure the leaves and cell 

 structure, these having been already delineated in various 

 descriptive works, and especially in 'Muscologia Gallica.' The 

 plates are from nature prints of actual specimens, by Mr. John 

 Marten, of Chatham, and are intended to give an idea of the 

 general habit of the various forms. Some of them are, how- 

 ever, so variable that it is impossible to do justice to them with 

 a single figure, and the limitations of space have necessitated 

 the selection of small stems of some of the more robust species. 



1902 March 3. E 



