51 
year. 1870, very plentiful, and abundance of it has come to 
maturity. This moss always grows on dried mud. 
2. Phascum serratum ft is frequent every autumn on 
clay and sandy banks at Mere ; it occurs quite frequently 
in corn fields at Bowdon, in damp seasons, coming up a few 
weeks after the com has been cut. In com fields at Bowdon 
its companions are Phascum muticum, Phascum alterni- 
folium, and Pottia truncata, and very rarely Trichoclon 
cylindricus — the latter never fruits in this district. 
3. Phascum nitidum, frequent every autumn at Mere on 
clay and sandy banks ; it occurs elsewhere about Bowdon on 
newly- cut ditch banks. 
4. Phascum rostellatum, on banks at Mere, with the two 
previous species, but much more sparingly. It has also been 
found in Sussex by Mr. Mitten, and was collected there 
again last year by Mr. Davies. It is one of the rarest of all 
the British mosses. 
5. Phascum sessile, very rare at Mere. I collected it in 
the autumn of 1869, and again in November, 1870, inter- 
mixed very sparingly among Phascum serratum, from which 
it is difficult to separate it except with the aid of the 
microscope. With this it can be at once distinguished from 
that species by its longer, more rigid, almost entire leaves, 
with a very wide nerve. Phascum serratum has no nerve, 
and the leaves are spinulosely serrated. Phascum sessile 
was gathered in Sussex many years since, but I have not 
heard of its recent discovery either there or elsewhere. It is 
one of the rarest British mosses. 
6. Phascum patens, on dried mud, almost every season, 
intermixed with Physcomitrium splicericum, and usually 
much more plentiful than that species. This moss comes 
up in autumn in the Ashley district of Bowdon, although 
very sparingly, wherever an open drain has been cut in 
spring. It also springs up about Bollington, under the same 
circumstances. 
