NOTES ON MOSSES. 347 

H. lucens, the shining Hookeria, found on moist banks in woods, 
or among shaded rocks in the temperate districts of Great Britain 
and Ireland. 
In the neighbourhood of Manchester it has been collected in 
fruit at Handforth, in Bamford Wood and in Cotterill Clough. 
Both the foliage and fructification are beautiful objects, and when 
once known will not be easily mistaken for any other species. 
Stems 1—3 inches procumbent, with irregular complanate 
branches ; leaves large, complanate, roundish ovate, obtuse, entire, 
nerveless ; areolze large, hexagonal, pellucid, the leaves glistening 
in the damp shady spots in which it grows; the seta are lateral ; 
capsule roundish elliptical, almost pendulous ; with double peris- 
tome, the outer of 16 teeth, the inner of 16 cilia, united below into 
a membrane; lid conical, suddenly tapering into a long straight 
beak ; calyptra mitriform: monoicous. Fig. 47. 
Now the long evenings are upon us, limiting our search for 
objects in the woods, lanes and fields ; it may, perhaps, be of some 
use to say a few words upon mounting mosses for the Microscope. 
A few hints with regard to drying and arranging specimens for the 
herbarium will be found in the report of the Manchester Micros- 
copical Society’s proceedings on page 225. To those who wish 
merely to examine their gatherings for the purpose of classification, 
it will be sufficient to place the Moss upon an ordinary slip with a 
drop of water and one of the larger cover glasses; first detaching 
with needles two or three of the stems and also the branch leaves, 
to note their form and areolation; and it may be here observed 
that for mosses, objectives of low power, giving good penetration, 
will be found to give the most satisfactory results ; while a piece of 
ground glass placed on the stage of the microscope, underneath 
the slip, will considerably improve the definition. 
In preparing the specimens for mounting, it is most important 
that they should be clean, and to attain this end, washing in water, 
with the aid of camel-hair pencils, will have to be many times 
repeated ; this will tax the patience considerably, as the minute 
specks of dirt, in some instances, defy all the efforts made to dislodge 
them from between the closely imbricated leaves. A perfectly 
clean mount will, however, well repay all the trouble spent upon it ; 
the capsule with its peristome, forming one of our most beautiful 
botanical slides, when seen with the spot lens, or as an opaque 
object ; while the variety of the cell structure equals, if it does not 
surpass, that of the more highly organized Phanerogams. The 
washing may be greatly facilitated by first shaking well the speci- 
mens in a bottle half filled with water, frequently changing the 
water until every particle of dirt is dislodged, and being careful to 
lay aside the calyptras and operculums or lids; but much of the 
difficulty in cleaning may be avoided by mounting the specimens 
