NOTES ON MOSSES. 267 


the basis of fact on which a scientific generalisation is established, 
the less the probability of its being supplanted or even modified by 
succeeding facts. The scientific mind should, and would, find no 
difficulty in receiving Heterogenesis if it represented a fact in 
nature. But with the vast area of facts that absolutely oppose it, 
as definitely settled as the specific gravity of gold; and with the 
crude and undigested “ evidence” brought by its advocates in its 
favour, we may scarcely anticipate that uncertainty or caprice in 
vital development, or a new power in “protoplasm” to disregard 
its inherited tendencies, will be amongst the facts that will make the 
light of human knowledge brighter in the years to come. In their 
obedience to law, every realm of nature is atone. But in the realm 
of life, the obedience is the most intense, because demonstrably 
subject to the highest and most wide-reaching of all laws— 
Evolution, 
NOTES ON MOSSES. 
OCTOBER. 
hy part five of the British Flora, Dr. Braithwaite says, “Of the 
immense family of the Dicranacee or Fork Mosses, numbering 
nearly 600 species, and distributed throughout the world at all 
altitudes, only one, Trematodontez, of the six sub-families, into 
which the European species are arranged, is not found in Great 
Britain ; although represented on the Continent by three species 
of the genus Trematadon, and three of the genus Bruchia, one of 
which, 2B. palustris, may possibly occur here.” The classification 
of the sub-families is based upon Professor Lindberg’s admirable 
work (1878), and comprises, 1. Ditrichee; 2. Dicranellee; 3. 
Seligeriex ; 4. Dicranee ; 5. Onsophoree. It is noticeable that 
the list of Mosses appended to Sir John Franklin’s “ Journey to 
the Polar Seas,” consists of British Mosses, amongst which are the 
Fork Mosses. 
Inhabiting the ground, and also rocks, sometimes trunks of trees, 
the plants vary from minute to very tall, with leaves broadly lan- 
ceolate to subulate, smooth and nerved. 
Capsule erect or drooping (cernuous) ; peristome of 16 teeth, 
cleft half-way or sometimes to the base into two lanceolate legs. 
Lid large and usually beaked (rostrate) ; calyptra large, dimidiate, 
irregular. 
The genus Dicranella is distinguished in a great measure from 
Dicranum (see July notes, p. 182) by the absence of larger pellucid 

