acuminate, rosulate, serrate above, costate to near the apex ■
antheridia sessile in the axil of a leaf, or in young plants terminal
m the buds and becoming lateral by the growth of the
female flower : capsule immersed, or pedicellate and exserted. —
Bryol. Eur. t. 3. Phascum patens, Hedw. Stirp. Crypt, i. 28
t. 10 ; Sulliv. Mosses of Ü. States, 15. ’
Hab. Wet clayey or sandy ground in bottoms, on the banks of rivers
etc. ; not rare in Ohio. iivers,
4. SPHÆRANGIUM, Schimp.
Plants gemmiforrn, very small, gregarious or irregularly
loosely cespitose. Lower leaves very small, the upper very
largo, subconvolute-imbricated or clustered in a small bulblike
head, concave or carinate, costate, minutely 'papillose on
the back or on both sides. Male and female flowers coherino-
or rooting as distinct plants. Capsule either short-pedicellate
and erect or on a longer slender curved pedicel, spherical,
enclosed in the perichætium. Calyptra erect, very small,
mitnform. Spores small, subglobose, minutely granulose,
brown.
1. s . m u ticum , Schimp. Plant yellowish brown ; lower
and middle leaves ovate-acuminate, more or less recurved at the
apex and mucronate by the excurrent costa; upper leaves two,
rarely three, twice as large as the lower, mucronate by the
excurrent recurved costa or irregularly erose at the apex : capsule
short-pedicellate, erect, slightly mamillate at top, orange.
hyn. Muse. 13. Phascum muticum, Schreb. Phase, t. 1
fig. 11,12 ; Sulhv. Mosses of H. States, 15. Acaulon muticunl
Muell. Syn. ; Bryol. Eur. t. 4.
Ha b . California [Bolander).
2. S. rufescens. Plants greenish yellow: lower leaves
very small, ecostate, the upper very large, convolute in an
authors include the gen.us Ephemerum as the lowest member of the Phvs-
comitrieæ We have here retained tlie classiflcation followed by the
recent authors whose works are more generally known and more accessible
to studen ts,-Schim p e r , Wilson, Sullivant, e t c . , - n o t merely because
It has been adopted by all American bryologists, but because it is by
tar the simplest, and the most serviceable in the study of mosses.
obtusely tetragonal head, deeply concave, cuspidate by the
thick excurrent costa, denticulate or erose at the apex: male
buds sessile at the base of the fertile ones : capsule on an erect
flexuous or arcuate pedicel. — Acaulon rufescens, A. Jaegci-,
Muse. Cleist. 19. Acaulon triquetrum, var., Sulliv. & Lesq.
Muse. Bor.-Am. Exsicc. (2 ed.), ii. 81.
Hab. Very common in the Eastern and Central States.
This species is intermediate between the last and the next following,
and so near to both that it is difficult to indicate a constant speciiic
character. The color of the more distinctly triangular perichsetium, as well
as the occasionally longer and curved pedicel, refers it to S. triquetrum;
hut ill the generally short and straight pedicel, the leaves not at all or
scarcely revoliite on the margin and more distinctly erose-denticulate at
the apex, and the bulb-like heads indistinctly triquetrous, it approaches
S. muticum.
3. S. t r iq u e tr um , Schimp. Plants pale green or yellowish,
distinctly triquetrous: lower leaves small, somewhat nerveless,
the middle broadly ovate and costate, and the terminal deejily
carinate, reflexed on the margins, minutely erose at the ajiex,
mucronate by the excurrent recurved point of the costa: capsule
pendent from a longer arcuate pedicel. — Syn. Muse. 14.
Phascum triquetrum. Spruce, Engl. Bot. Suppl. t. 2901; Sulliv.
Mosses of U. States, 15. Acaulon triquetrum, Muell. Syn.;
Bryol. Eur., t. 4.
Hab. Open soil; New England (Ingraham, James); New, Jersey
(Austin); Santee Canal, South Carolina (B'avenel); Saskatchewan
(Drummond).
4. S. S ch im p e rian um . Plants sparsely gregarious, ovoid-
bulbiform: leaves closely imbricate, the lower small, ecostate,
the upper much larger, deeply concave, recurved at the apex,
papillose on both faces, recurved on the margin, erose-dentate
in the upper part, the costa appearing below the apex and ex-
ourrent into a long point: capsule globose, scarcely mamillate,
orange-colored, horizontally inclined by a curve of the somewhat
long pedicel.—Phascum Schimperianum, Sulliv. Mosses
of U. States, 15. Acaulon Schimperianum, Sulliv. Icon. Muso.
18, t. 9.
Hab. San Marcos, Texas (Wright); Athens, Illinois (E. Hall).
5. PHASCUM, Linn., in part. (PL 1.)
Plants more robust, distinctly caulescent. Leaves costate;
cells of the areolation loose, hexagonal-rectangular and hyaline