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CURBSTONE MOSSES. 
Cora H. Clarke. 
Having lately made an interesting discovery on a curbstone, I would 
suggest to those Chapter members who live in cities to examine the curb- 
stones in the side streets, or those a little out of town where they are not too 
vigorously scraped and cleaned. 
In the city of Meadville, Penn., where I have passed the winter, the 
moss-gathering capacity of the curbstones is sadly interferred with by the 
regrettable custom of raking up the autumn leaves and making bonfires of 
them, close to the sidewalks, whereby the mosses growing on the side of the 
curbstone are singed, blackened, or wholly killed, and sometimes the fire 
creeps through under a board walk, and destroys mosses growing on the 
stone base of an iron fence. I have such a piece of stone work in my mind, 
where I have found at different times a fruiting Amblystegium varium, two 
or three species of Bryum, Weisia viridula, Ceratodon, a Barbula, and 
Funaria hygrometrica. 
In the part of the town where I stay, there is an edging of grass 
between the flagging and the curbstone, and the proximity of the grass 
seems favorable for the growth of mosses on both the top and the side of the 
curbstone. Funaria is the commonest species, and now, May 18, is very 
pretty, with its green cranes’-heads. Bryum argenteum is tolerably com- 
mon, and some other Bryums, of which the heads are green still, with Cera- 
todon, and sundry pleurocarps which are not in fruit. 
But the richest harvest of moss I found on the next street, on a curbstone 
facing north, and partly shaded by trees. The stone seems to be a sort of 
slate, but perhaps a little too smooth for the adherence of the mosses, for in 
many places they were lying in the gutter in a roll that had peeled off the 
curb. Where they were still attached, they looked like a solid green cush- 
ion, covering the whole side of the curbstone, and I was surprised to find 
them nearly all acrocarptis mosses. The silvery foliage of Bryum argenteum 
seemed quite concealed in the green growth, but the tiny bells hung here and 
there: the other Bryums sent up their needles — also Ceratodon; the Funa- 
rias showed both old brown capsules, and young shoots. It is my experience 
that in mosses, when the ripe fruit has shed its lids, the fruit of the next 
year begins to show the silvery sheen of its caps. 
Patches of Barbula unguiculata grew here and there; most of the lids 
were gone at this date, April 18th, but the red peristome was in good condi- 
tion. But my most interesting species was one that as I have hinted was 
new to me: here and there my eye was caught by a red gleam, which close 
inspection showed to be caused by tiny red capsules, each on a very short 
seta, and all the wee heads looking one way — a few still bore the lids, but 
most of them showed the red peristome. It was evidently a Dicranella and 
I have made it out to be Dicranella varta, a species which I never hap- 
pened to find before, although I have some specimens in my herbarium. 
In the hope that others may find species of equal interest to them on the 
curbstones to which they have access, I send this account of my experience. 
Boston, Mass. 
