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The Curator for the cryptogamic section of the Herbarium Boissier at 
Chambesy, near Geneva, Switzerland, desires to exchange mosses and 
hepatics with American and Canadian Bryologists. The Herbarium 
Boissier has a large collection of duplicates, mostly European with some 
exotics. For further particulars address Monsieur G. Colomb-Duplan, Les 
Tordils, Ouchy-Lausanne, Switzerland. 
RAMAL1NA RIGID A IIN MASSACHUSETTS. 
Since I published my note on this species (Bryologist, Vol. IX., No. 2, 
Mar. 1906. p. 32.) I have had some ample and more typical 6 specimens sent 
me from the Island of Martha’s Vineyard where it grows with Usnea b. 
ceratinaon Juniperus. In Decades of North American Lichens, Cummings, 
Williams and Seymour, No. 199, I find specimens from Brewster, Massa- 
chusetts, collected on November 10, 1904, by L. A. Crocker. Ramalina 
rigida Pers. seems to have a New England range almost identical with the 
Seaside Sparrow (Ammodramus maritimns ), an Upper Austral species, and 
the plant may evidently be looked for over the entire Cape and south shore 
region of Massachusetts, as well as along the coasts of Rhode Island and 
Connecticut. Reginald Heber Howe, Junior. 
Concord, Massachusetts. 
NOTES ON THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE MNIUMS. 
Phebe M. Towle. 
The study of the life history of some of the mosses which was begun in 
the spring of 1905, has been continued during the past year. The observa- 
tions for 1903 upon the Hair-caps gave for Polytrichmn commune and P. 
juniperinum the time of maturing of antheridia and archegonia and their 
contents in April, and the time of the maturing of the sporophytes in August 
of the following year, a period of about sixteen 'months. The observations 
of 1904 upon Catherinea undulata gave the time of maturity of the- anther- 
idia and archegonia and their contents in May, and the time of the maturity 
of the sporophytes in the following March and April, a period of about 
eleven months. 
The observations for 1905 have been chiefly upon the Mniums and upon 
these we have made only a good beginning. There are only three Mniums 
on this list and the work on one of these is unsatisfactory. It is hoped that 
careful observation in 1906 may make this clear and complete the list. 
Mnium sylvaticum grows in shady places, in the woods near the brooks, 
and in damp, rocky places. It is a beautiful bright green moss in early 
spring. On April 13th, the sporophytes were shedding their spores. On 
June 20th, M. sylvaticum heads which are bisexual were examined. Neither 
antheridia nor archegonia when undisturbed were open, but disturbed an- 
theridia discharged sperm mother cells. About three weeks later, July 14th, 
in one head, two archegonia had grown to twice the height of the others. 
