-30— 
of the former is typically foliaceous, dorsiventral in structure, and the 
apothecia are affixed to the surface or near the margin of the lobes and 
provided with a dentate excipular margin. In Alectoria Calif ortiica the 
thallus is cylindrical, radial in structure, the apothecia lateral with a 
commonly entire and smooth margin. In the view here taken of the 
species Cetraria Calif arnica Tuck, is as yet undescribed and only repre- 
sented in any mode of publication by such examples as have been issued 
by Miss Cummings and Dr, Zahlbruckner. The sub-nomen sepmcola may 
well be dropped. Rockland, Maine. 
A PLEA FOR MORE AND BETTER LOCAL WORK. 
Elizabeth G. Britton. 
Read by title at the meeting of the Sullivant Moss Society, Boston, Dec. 80, 1909. 
This is not meant to disparage any of the work on mosses that has 
been done in America or that is now being done by various students in 
different states ; but is rather the natural desire of one who day after day, 
and year after year, is shut up in the house with the mosses, after they are 
torn from their natural surroundings, all breath of the woodlands gone, and 
many times all records as to seasons, habitat, date, place, conditions, etc. 
Sometimes even the name of the collector gone as well. It is from nearly 
thirty years of study and experience that I say, that no group of flowering 
plants will better repay ecological and biological study than the mosses. 
The most common species are often the ones least understood, or if they 
have been understood, their records are lost, and only a list of synonyms, 
sometimes a page in length (See Paris Index p, 339-340, vol. i, second edi- 
tion,) as in Ceratodonpurfureus, remains to show the struggles of systema- 
tists to account for its variations and the imperfections of our text-books in 
description. You know what Braithwaite says about this species? 
“ The polymorphous character of this plant may be assumed from its 
lengthy synonymy, and so endless are the forms that we cannot even define 
stable varieties. We would advise all commencing bryologists to study 
every part of this moss well, as its structure once familiarized to the eye will 
save much after trouble, and the beautiful peristome must attract every 
microscopist.” 
Ditrichum tortile (Schrad.) Boeck. is another puzzle (See Paris Index 2; 
98) and even at the present time American students are not agreed as to 
whether we have one species or four, in our collections, bearing this name. 
