OBSERVATIONS ON MOSSES. 
29 
specimina in collections, in which, as every bryologist knows, 
the lids are detached earlier than in nature) detached from their 
fruits. 
The above proposed observations I have thought it best to limit 
to only a small number of species, because many a one would be 
deterred from undertaking a greater number of observations, as 
being too toilsome, and because it is better to get numerous dates of 
few species, than few dates of many species. Besides, I have, in 
making choice of the mosses, here underneath proposed as objects 
of observing, tried to get mosses : 
That through their wide distribution, may be common to ob- 
servers in the most distant countries ; 
That are easily recognised lest they may not by any observer be 
confounded with other species 
That I have found to have a more limited time of their blooming 
and fructification ; 
That, as far as possible, represent very different parts of the year, 
as it is important to examine what variations the phsenological laws 
are subjected to according to different seasons ; 
That their blooming and fructification are at least in Sweden 
contemporary with many kindred species, by which means at the 
same time, as the time of blooming and fructification in different 
regions of the world become known in the proposed species, this 
time is at least approximatingly indicated also to their contem- 
poraries in Sweden, as mosses that are contemporary in Sweden, 
must be supposed with very great probability to be contemporary 
also in other countries ; or finally 
The blooming and fructification of which in Sweden exhibit any 
extraordinary peculiarities ; as for which it were interesting to find 
whether they exist also in other countries. Among the mosses 
that I have chosen chiefly from the last reason I dare in the first 
place call attention to Dicranelia cerviculata and varia, the former 
of which, as well as also D. heteromalla, snbulata, and curvata , 
blossoms in Sweden about the 1st of September, and ripens its 
fruits first 16-19 months after the blooming, whereas D. varia , as 
well as the remaining Swedish species of Dicranelia , blossoms 
about midsummer, but ripens its fruits already 6-8 months after the 
blooming : to Hypnuin crista- castrensis, that blossoms in Sweden 
in the former half of August, and requires 16-21 months for the 
formation of its fruits, this species and Hypnum purum thus being 
the only pleurocarpous mosses in Sweden that require more than a 
year for the formation of their fruits ; to Aulacommon palustre, 
Tetraphis pellucida, Polytrichum commune and piliferum that require 
in Sweden at least 13 months for the formation of their fruits ; 
to Dicranum undulatum and fuscescens that require even 17 months 
for the formation of their fruits, and, besides, bloom at different 
seasons in different parts of the Scandinavian peninsula, in the 
midst of Sweden a little before the 1st of August, in more northern 
parts of Norway in J une, etc. 
