- 8 3 — 
anths, because these would settle the matter beyond doubt. As it is, I fear the 
determination will have to be considered provisional.” The plant was collected 
on the face of a granite cliff overhanging the Brazos River, associated with 
Selaginella Underwoodii and various lichens and mosses. The genus is not 
reported from Colorado, but Brazos Canyon is not more than 25 miles south of 
the Colorado line. 
U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. 
SYSTEMATIC AND ECOLOGICAL NOTES ON THE MOSSES OF 
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 
O. E. Jennings 
I. General Notes 
When the writer took charge of the botanical work in the Carnegie Museum 
in 1905 the need of bryological investigations in the region of Western Pennsyl- 
vania was at once apparent. Aside from the collections of Burnett in McKean 
County, of Linn & Simonton in Washington County, and of various scattered 
collections of Porter and of James, very little was known of the moss-flora of the 
region. In fact, the mosses of Eastern Pennsylvania, and of Ohio on the west, 
were much better known than those of Western Pennsylvania. 
In connection with the general exploration of Western Pennsylvania for botan- 
ical specimens of all kinds, the writer has taken the opportunity for collecting 
much bryological material and, with the accumulation of this material, the 
specimens have been carefully studied and placed in the herbarium and, finally, 
as thesis work, there has been prepared a local manual 1 covering the mosses of 
Western Pennsylvania and adjacent territory. This manual was published in 
accordance with the requirements for a thesis, but that future investigation will 
add very greatly to its contents is a certainty, and that some conclusions therein 
reached will be found erroneous is a probability. It may be of some interest to 
call attention to some of the points brought out in the course of the preparation 
of the manual, as well as to refer to more recent finds. 
In Porter’s “ Catalogue of the Bryophyta and P ter idophyta found in Pennsyl- 
vania ” only 3 species of Sphagnum are reported for Western Pennsylvania. The 
herbarium at the Carnegie^ Museum now has 20 species and several varieties, 
if the writer has succeeded in properly identifying them, about as many as had 
been reported in the Catalogue for the whole state. It is interesting to note 
that, although the larger part of western Pennsylvania is unglaciated and has a 
rapid and thorough drainage, thus leaving few swamps or ponds, there are never- 
theless a number of the species fairly well distributed in the region: Sphagnum 
affine R. & C. has now been found in eight counties, and S. recurvum (Beauv.) 
Warnst. in six. The best region for Sphagnums has been the Pymatuning Swamp 
in northwestern Pennsylvania, although a number of species have turned up 
1 A Manual of the Mosses of Western Pennsylvania. 1913* 375 pages of text and 54 pages of 
figures. 
