THE GENERA OF MOSSES. 117 
and the depression of the columella without showing any 
marks of having been attached to the epiphragma, inclined 
us to the contrary opinion, wjh^i^i, upon farther investiga- 
tion, proved to be correct. This membrane {stigma of 
Palisot jde Beauvois) is also very difficult to be seen, 
though always present in Funaria. Whence that author's 
remark, " stigma simple, et non apparent dans la StrepM- 
die {Funaria) y 
It is worthy of remark, that in one species of Calym- 
pereSy which Mr Brown examined, he mentions the mem- 
brane as " entirely wanting, or firmly adhering to the inner 
surface of the operculum, along with which a considerable 
portion of the columella also separates * which consider- 
ably favours our idea of the columella being furnished with 
an opercular membrane, which in this case might have pe- 
netrated the centre of the epiphragma, and produced the 
above mentioned adhesion. 
Mr Brown t seems to imagine that the spongy epiphrag- 
ma of Calymperes is analogous to the horizontal membrane 
which arises from the lining of the theca in many Gymno- 
stomay Weissia Templetoni, &c. ; thus making it merely 
close up the mouth of the sporular bag. We regret, how- 
ever, that our specimens of Calymperes lonchophyllum and 
C. Palisoti are not in a proper state for examination ; but 
we can bear witness to the accuracy of that part of Dr 
Hooker's figure of C Gardneri J, in which the membrane 
is represented as arising from the outer wall of the theca, 
which is really the case, and must therefore be considered 
as a true and curiously modified peristomium, bearing no 
very distant similitude to Leptostomum, in one species of 
* Linn. Trans, vol. xii. p. 573, note. 
X Muse. Exot. Tab. 146, 
t Ibid, 
