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NOTES ON VERMONT BRYOPHYTES-1906. 
By A. J. Grout. 
Although the flowering plants and ferns of Mt. Mansfield have been care- 
fully studied and listed, the bryophyte flora has received less attention. Mr. 
C. G. Pringle, who first explored this region with thoroughness, collected many 
mosses and hepatics, but it was his custom to collect only fruiting plants. 
Mrs. Britton, Dr. Evans, Dr. Kennedy and myself, have done some collect- 
ing of bryophytes on the mountain and in its vicinity. 
This season it was my pleasure to attend the meeting of the Vermont 
Botanical Club on the mountain and to spend a week on the summit, 
engaged chiefly in collecting mosses. 
Dr. Kennedy had previously reported Tayloria tenuis , but I came upon 
such quantities of it as to be able to supply Prof. Holzinger with enough for 
his Musci Acrocarpi Bor. -Am. and have an abundant supply left. It grew 
along the banks of a little rivulet into which the Summit House sewer dis- 
charges, but far enough down so that it was not offensive. Schistostega 
is abundant in the deep clefts in overhanging rocks on the northeast side of 
the mountain, below a point in the road about a quarter of a mile from the 
hotel; I also found it in a crevice about ten feet to the left of the cave in the 
north face of the “Nose.” These high, damp, creviced north-facing cliffs of 
the “ Nose,” near the hotel, are an ideal collecting place for rare and interesting 
mosses. Here Swartzia ?nontana is very fine and abundant and fruits 
freely; in damp crevices in overhanging rocks is an abundance of Amfthid- 
ium Lapponicum. In the deepest, darkest, and dampest clefts was a limited 
supply of Rhabdoweisia denticulata and Cynodontium gracilescens. On the 
wet soil at the base of overhanging cliffs is a variety of Plagiothecuim den- 
ticulatum near var. obtusifolium; with this and in similar places was an 
abundance of Pohlia cruda , mostly sterile. In spots similar to those men- 
tioned last is an Amblystegium which I made A. vacillans. On these cliffs 
Andre aea petrophila is abundant and fruits freely. While abundant on 
rocks all about the summit, it seems not to fruit to any great extent on the 
more exposed portions of the mountain. 
I thought I had some knowledge of Pohlia nutans , but here I found it so 
variable that I collected it a dozen times, thinking each time that I had some- 
thing different from the previous collections. If any one with the species- 
making instinct, like that which has recently dealt with Thorn Apples and 
Violets, ever takes hold of Pohlia nutans , I tremble for the result. There 
were large robust forms and small slender forms, forms with small capsules 
and forms with large capsules, forms with seta long and slender and others 
with seta short, forms with leaves typical and others with lower leaves 
shortly oblong-ovate and rather short acuminate. One form common on the 
summit in wet places, such as the edge of rain pools, resembles the form 
described by Mr. Dixon in his notes under this species. This fruits rather 
sparingly, but certainly is paroicous. Sterile specimens have been issued by 
Prof. Holzinger in his Musci Acrocarpi Bor. -Am. as Weber a commutata. 
