I3 1 



NOTES on MOSSES. 



North of England Harpidia : Corrections.— Perhaps the following 

 errata had better be corrected in my paper on Harpidia : — 

 Page 78, line 19. Dove should be Dore. 



Page 88, lines 22-23. Staley Brushes and Wybunbury Bog- should be in 

 Province 9. * 



Page 90. The Fairbage Moor locality for H. scorpioides is in V.C. ^-j, 

 Province 8. 



1 am indebted to the Rev. W. R. Linton for these corrections. — J. A. 

 WHELDON, Liverpool, 18th March 1902. 



Is Webera cucullata Schimp. a Derbyshire Moss?— This species 

 is recorded for Derbyshire in Whitehead's 'North Derbyshire Mosses,' in 

 Braithwaite's * British Moss Flora ' (Part XVI., Addenda), and in Dixon and 

 Jameson's ' Student's Handbook,' and thus seems amply vouched for. These 

 records, I believe, all rest on Mr. Whitehead's specimens from Kinder Scout, 

 who, in a letter enclosing a little of his original gathering, wrote that he had 

 himself named the moss, and that Dr. Braithwaite and Mr. Boswell had 

 both confirmed the name. A comparison of this specimen with Norwegian 

 W. cucullata led me to ask Mr. Dixon if the Kinder Scout plant was not 

 rather an aberrant form of W. nutans. Mr. Dixon, after re-examining- his 

 specimens, confirmed this view. Dr. Braithwaite, on being appealed to. 

 said that he believed the moss was named by Mr. Holt, w T ho informed me 

 that, on the contrary, he thought it referable to IV. polymorpha. Thus 

 Mr. Whitehead's specimens have been referred by competent bryologists to 

 three different species, so that TV. cucullata cannot with any certainty be 

 regarded as a Derbyshire moss. — T. Barker, Whale}- Bridge, 3rd February 

 1902. 



On the name Harpidium. — The publication in the March number of 

 ' The Naturalist ' of Mr. Wheldon's account of the Harpidia of Northern 

 England induces me to point out that lichenologists have a prior claim to 

 the name. 



In its application to mosses the name only dates from 1856, with the 

 publication of Sullivant's ' Musci and Hepaticse of the United States,' in 

 which it was used to designate a subgenus or section of Hypnn?K, thus 

 superseding- C. Muller's name of Drepanoctadus, Syn. Muse, II., p. 321 

 (1851). The word coined by Sullivant from the Greek apirr], a sickle, has 

 reference to the ' more or less falcate-seeund or circinate ' leaves of the 

 mosses included in the section, and had it not been used previously for a 

 genus of lichens would be a very appropriate designation for the plants in 

 question. 



Unluckily, the year before— that is, in 1855 — Korber, in his ' Systema 

 Lichenum Germanise,' had coined and used the same name for a new genus 

 of Placodine lichens, and in this case the word had reference to the curved, 

 sickle-shaped, or lunulate spores. 



Korber's genus was immediately adopted by Krempelhuber and Massa- 

 long-o in the Conspectus prefixed to the ' Lichenes Exs. Italia?' (1855), was 

 recognised by Fries in his ' Genera Heterolichenum,' 1861, and is still main- 

 tained by those who follow the classification of Korber and Massalongo ; 

 e.g., Stein, ' Kryptogamen Flora von Schlesien,' 1879, and C. Sanio, 

 ' Die Harpidien des Nordl. Finnlands,' 1890. 



It is inadmissible to have the same name for two groups of plants, and 

 it only remains for bryologists to give another name to the Hypnum section 

 of mosses, either by falling back on C. Muller's Drepanocladus, or by invent- 

 ing a fresh designation if from any reason that seems inapplicable. 



I have only to state further that I am indebted to my good friends 

 G. Stabler and E. M. Holmes for particulars respecting the use of 

 the word among bryologists, as I am not versed in moss literature. 

 J. A. Martindale, Staveley, Kendal, 16th March 1902. 



1902 April 1. 



