

NOTES ON MOSSES. ary 


NOTES ON MOSSES. 
S we are now in the midst of the holiday season it will perhaps 
be appropriate to mention one or two of the happy hunting 
grounds for the Muscologist. 7 
Commencing near home, we have first of all Marple and Dan 
Bank, then Staley Brushes, where permission to ramble up the 
stream will have to be procured from any of the Ashton or Staly- 
bridge Waterworks Committee. 
From Buxton to Miller’s Dale, for variety of species, will prove 
one of the most successful; over one hundred different species 
being collected during a day’s ramble in that neighbourhood. The 
sandhills at Southport, however, while quite as rich, boast a greater 
number of the rarer kinds, being peculiar in this respect, as many 
Mosses are found amongst these sandhills which are found no- 
where else in Britain, except in Cornwall, or on the well-known 
Bens of Scotland. 





Figs. 10. 11. 12. 
To those who are making Wales their summer resort, the Conway 
valley and the neighbourhoods of Dolgelly and Barmouth will 
prove especially fruitful and interesting; but to those who have 
the time, and also that important factor, the means, Scotland is 
the grand pilgrimage for all true lovers of this beautiful little plant 
—Ben Lawers being a veritable “ Mecha” in this respect. Of the 
six hundred British species, over three hundred and fifty are found 
on this mountain, of which twenty are found nowhere else in Britain. 
Of the Mosses in fruit this month, the Orthotrica, or Bristle- 
mosses, claim our attention, as many of the rarer species of this 
genus as Sturmit, stramineum, spectosum, Lyellit, and Ludwigit can 
now be searched for. Allied to the Grimmias they are very similar 
in appearance, being perennial and growing in round tufts of a dark- 
brown—almost black colour ; they are termed bristle-mosses from 
the character of its calyptra, Fig, ro. 
