Fig.' I I. Sefction of the Same by Which'the insertion'of the ou^er and, particularly, the inner peristomium is exposed
to view. Fig. IS. Cilia of the outer peristomium. Fig. 13. Upper part of the seminal bag with its filaments,
and terminated by the columella. Fig. 14. Transverse section of the green seminal bag. Fig. 15. A
filament that connects the seminal bag to the inner, wall of the capsule: Fig. 1(5. Old Capsule laid open to show
the columella. Fig. 17. Ripe seeds.—All from Jig. 7. highly magnified..
This singular plant, “ Muscomm regina,” as Dillenius emphatically calls it, may justly be considered as the rarest
British species of the tribe to which it belongs. The only specimens that were ever discovered in England I had
the good fortune to find, in December 1806, in a wood at Sprowston, near. Norwich, growing on a small hillock
of peat earth, together with plants of Dicranum scoparium, and abundance of Corjervafrigida (Ceramium Dill-
wynii, Roth.), in a situation shaded by fir-trees. For several winters I had the opportunity of watching the progress
of this plant from the infant state to its progress to maturity, which happened in March or the beginning of
April, when it perished and nothing more was to be seen till the following October or November.
Notwithstanding the strictest search was made throughout the wood by my botanical friends as well as myself,
no other station was to be found than the one just mentioned; and even there, although I left several plants every
season, the number of individuals annually diminished, so that since the year 1812 none have appeared. In Scotland
my young friend Mr. E. Maughan, of Edinburgh, gathered it in Rosslyn wood, by the road-side, not far from
the chapel, in 1808 and the following year ; since which time.none have been found there: and another Scotch
habitat was detected in 1809 by the late Mr. Jackson in a. wood near Aberdeen. Dr. Wade in his Plantee ra-
nores Hibernia mentions having found it upon rocks by the lake of Killamey; a place of growth very different
from any that has been elsewhere remarked. A large variety grows in Switzerland upon the decayed stumps o f trees,
.which M. Decandolle has intimated to me may probably be a distinct species; but after an attentive examination
I confess that I see no reason to think it so. .
- Unless Mr. Jackson stated to any person more particularly than he did to me the station for this plant near
Aberdeen, I fear that no certain one is now known to exist in this country.
On the continent of Europe and even in America this plant is more frequent than with us. I t was first discovered
on the banks of the Wolga near-Astrachan by Buxbaum, and described by him in his Centuries as “ Muscus
capillaceus, aphyllus, capitulo crasso bivalvi*,” mistaking probably a line, formed by the shrinking of the upper
part of the capsule for the suture of the valves. | After the example of Marchant, Buxbaum was anxious to name
‘ this' new moss after his father : “ sed venit,” he observes, “ mihi in mentem vulpes, qui deridebatur ab aliis, quod
uvas non pro se, sed pro tegrota posceret matre.” Future botanists, however, have done him the honour which
he so justly merits.
Nothing can be more evident than that Michelis description, above quoted”, is made from some species of
Polytrichum, although he may have received the plant in question from Monti. Indeed Dillenius assures us that he
obtained a specimen from Monti himself which proved to be the Buxbaumia; so that he concludes that the individuals
given to Michel! were mixed with some Polytrichum which he confounded with them.
. The figures given in Dillenius’s Hist. Muscorum are made partly from Buxbaum s plate and partly from the
plants received from Monti, neither they nor the description being very accurate. Specimens afterwards obtained
from Celsius gathered “ ad Upsaliam in rupibus Lasbyensibus in 1729,” are described in the appendix, where
Dillenius seems to doubt if the plant be a moss or a fungus.
In the first edition of Haller’s Enumeratio Plantarum Helvetia it is mentioned as a fungus; but the author was
induced to change his opinion in the second edition, in which he asserts it to be a moss, describes it under the
name of Buxbaumia, and adds “ Modestia Buxbaumii fecit, ut destinatum nomen plantee rarissimee imponere non
Sustineret. Ego vero eo confidentior, novae plantee impono nomen peregrinatoris Botanici, cui, piaster - copiosum
certe catalogum plantarum circa Halam nascentium et quinque Centunas. plantarum rariorum in Oriente atque
Russia lectarum, multas etiam observationes per Acta Petropolitana sparsas debemus.” In his Stirpes the illustrious
Haller has given some further particulars of Buxbaumia, which, however excellent for the time in which they
were.written, go. but little way towards a satisfactory illustration of the species.
Fabricius changed the name to Hippopodium, “ propter capitulum ungulam equidem inversam im i t a n s a n d
Gleditsch ranges it among the fungi again.
Our great master Linnaeus published an admirable memoir on the genus in the fifth volume of the Amceniiates
Academica, which, though written so long ago as the year 1757, is full of valuable observation. Scarcely a year
elapsed when Schmidel gave to the. botanical world his Dissertation on Buxbaumia, than which a more complete
or satisfactory history scarcely exists, of any plant. The account o f the internal structure of the sack and of the
peristomium is however defective..
According to this author, who has had the advantage of me in the opportunity he enjoyed of dissecting a specimen
of Buxbaumia aphylla in its minutest state, when no larger than a seed of Chickweed (Alsine) or Poppy,
and discoverable only with the help of a microscope, the perichastium is at first hollow, or cup-shaped, with the
mouth open and truncate. Within, from the base in the centre, rises the minute oblong germen, not half the diameter
of the hollow, swollen a t the base, which afterwards becomes a little bulb filling the whole of the perichaetium.
In a little time the head of the germen is protruded beyond the perichastium, still covered with its calyptra, and
appears as a t jig . 2. in the annexed plate. The plant is not much further advanced when the calyptra falls': and
a t the middle period o f its growth it assumes the form, that is represented a t jig . 4., where the capsule, though still
erect, begins to show its remarkable gibbosity on one side: and the apophysis and operculum are both discernible.
Fig. 6. shows the capsule fully formed, but not mature. I t is in this state that it exhibits the internal structure as
given atJig. 7, and which is described under Diphyscium foliosum.
A section of the apophysis, which I neglected to make till the annexed plate was finished, presents to the view a
central column of a cellulose substance, such as Schmidel describes and figures a t jig . 20. and 25. Diphyscium
has no apophysis.
When fully ripe the capsule of Buxbaumia from green becomes of a yellow-brown colour, more or less tinged,
especially on the under side, with red or reddish purple. The operculum falls off, and offers to view the elevated
margin of the capsule sometimes cleft a little way down a t unequal distances ( see jig . 10.), in such a manner that
Hedwig and (following him) many other authors have considered it to be an external peristome. Thus they have
made this plant to possess a treble peristome; while others, Bridel and Brown for example, seem to have gone to
the other extreme, either.omitting to notice the “ corona e processulis succulentis,” or not considering it as any
way connected with the peristome. Nay, even Hedwig himself seemed at one time disposed to look upon it as
analogous to the annulus in many other mosses.
In all the specimens that I have myself examined of this moss, and I have destroyed every ripe capsule in my
Herbarium for the purpose, I have always seen a decided double peristomium, both of them arising from the extern
a l tegument, and just within the margin {jig. 11.): the exterior is composed of many (an indefinite number ?)
crowded, succulent, reddish, opaque, jointless, but somewhat torulose threads or cilia, which are erect, nearly equal
in height, and about one fourth of the length of the capsule. .1 know of nothing, strictly analogous to these in the
peristome of any mosses. Some similarity, indeed, there appears to be with that of Tortula, which if I am not
mistaken
* He further says of this moss, “ non obscure hie muscus refert receptaculum tubuli terrei, ex quo tabaci fumus hauritur, ex ligno tor-
natum, quale' Germania in usu esse solet, qui vocat Pluffen-futteral.”
mistaken is free from jo in ts; still closer perhaps is the resemblance to the fringe of the curious' genus Dawsonia
o f Brown, who says that it is a “ penicillum densum, album, longitudine circiter dimidii capsulas, formatum ciliis
indeterminatim numerosissimis, capillaribus, inarticulatis, asqualibus, rectis, albis, opacis, pluribus e capsulas parie-
tibus1 ducentibus.” Hence it will appear that the affinity of Buxbaumia to Dawsonia is not, as Mr. Brown supposes,
confined chiefly to the similarity of the capsule and of the central process of the columella, (v. Brown in
Linn. Trans, ml. JY. p. 319.)
With regard to the inner peristomium, I have always found it to be concealed by the external one when this is
uninjured. I t appears to resemble, in every particular, the membranaceous, cone-shaped peristomium of Diphyscium.
The apex in both is more or less jagged as if a portion o f it were carried away by the calyptra, a circumstance
that often happens to the columella, which if not so injured always stands out beyond the fringe, as it frequently
does in Splachnum and in Climacium dendroides.
This columella, as Mr. Brown suspects, Linnteus* seems to have taken into his generic character of Buxbaumia,
when he says “ intra operculum sacculus p o llin is y e t the exsertion of this part is overlooked by Schmidel.
I fear that, as an essential character of a genus, the columella cannot well be taken into account, since in the instance
before us it is so liable to be removed by the operculum.
I t is scarcely necessary to notice what has been said of the generic character of Buxbaumia by the writers prior
to Hedwig who first considered the peristome to be of that importance which daily experience justifies him in
having considered it. For none of them, not even the accurate Schmidel, has correctly understood it in the plant
before us.
Hedwig describes the peristomium “ ordine duplici: extemo dentibus sedecim truncatis; interno membrana-
ceo p lic a to fb u t in a subjoined note he says that it has as it were a treble peristomium, “ cum externum constet
dentibus sedecim truncatis, eminet abinde coronre imago, e numerosissimis succulentis processibus extructa, quos
dentibus quasi adglutinatos reperi, cum horum unum alterumque de sua sede so lv e r em ja n d his figure {Fund,
ml. 2. t. 9 - f- 52.) is a tolerably good representation of the capsule, except that the mouth of it is too regularly
divided into teeth.
Mohr likewise considers the peristomium of Buxbaumia to be triple, following Hedwig in the error of the outer
peristomium, yet criticising his account of the intermediate fringe. “ Certe,” he says, “ non rite observavit in-
signem hanc partem inter peristomium ext. dentium truncatorum e t .int. tubulosum, plicatum summ. v ir:—Mi-
nime corona processulorum est, uti in Fund. 2. t. 9• f - 52. earn exhibuit, sed reapse membrana (uti omnia alia
peristomia interiora membranacea) coronas ad imaginem superne effigurata, inter exterius e t intimum peristomium
affixa, et revera interius peristomium vocanda^.”
Bridel describes the outer peristomium as consisting of sixteen truncated teeth, the inner one of a plicated membrane,
not regarding the intermediate cilia as forming a part with them.
Mr. Brown has revised the character of Buxbaumia in the Linn. Trans, ml. 10. p. 319. with a view to include
both Buxbaumia and Diphyscium, which he says ought not to be separated, as Ehrhart and some later writers have
done; but he has in fact made it to accord only with the former.
Voit|| maintains a different opinion concerning the peristome: “ Q uod ipsum attinet peristoma, duplex tantum
hoc vidi, exterius nimirum, cujus dentes sunt truncati atque inasquales ; et interius, quod albicans est, nec quod
cel. Web. et Mohr contendunt, e membrana constat, sed re vera processulorum coronam exhibet, quod jamdudum
celeber Hedwigius bene observavit.” Thus does the membranous peristomium appear entirely to have escaped
the notice of tiffs author. He goes on to observe: “ Columella, e fundo setae (non sporangii) ascendens e t sporangium
permeans, operculi apici tam arete adnata est, ut, illo arete soluto, circa medium rumpatur et turn pexistomii
abruptos dentes in operculi cavitate relictos mentiatur! ” I have already noticed the adhesion of the upper part
of the columella to the hollow of the operculum; and my friend Dr. Taylor has just sent me a beautiful drawing
of the operculum of this moss, in which remain considerable portions of the cilia as well as of the columella; thus
confirming Voit’s remark.
Having I trust from the descriptions here given and from the subjoined figures made apparent the necessity of
considering Buxbaumia and Diphyscium as two separate genera, it remains to be considered what place in the
order they should hold ; some Botanists having placed them in the beginning, (as Linnasus, Hoffmann, Smith,)
some in the middle, (Hedwig, Turner,) whilst others, among whom are Mohr and Voit, have put them a t the very
end of the system.
' Of the propriety of their being placed next each other there can be no question, notwithstanding that one has
a single peristomium and the other a double o n e; their habit requires i t ; and if we were to consider alone the
number o f these parts, there would be no difficulty in assigning them a situation: the one to be last in the division
of mosses with the single peristomium, the other the first in those with the double ones. Yet this would in other
points of view be unnatural, Diphyscium having more affinity with the genus Leptostomum and some of the Gym-
nostoma with membranous borders to the mouth, than with JVeissia, Dicranum and Trichostomum. I therefore
think that our two genera might be brought near Leptostomum of Brown, in consequence of their being furnished
with a membranous peristome: and Buxbaumia may claim to be separated not only from the double-fringed
mosses, but from the generality of the single-fringed ones, from the circumstance of the teeth or cilia not exhibiting
any appearance of articulation, along with Dawsonia and Polytrichum.
I t is asserted by Bridel that the male flowers of tiffs Moss are discoid and upon distinct individuals from the
female: but no one that I know of has yet described them: perhaps he only judges from analogy, Hedwig having
discovered the male flowers of Buxbaumia foliosa. I believe those of our p lant are quite unknown.
I cannot sum up the account of this curious Moss better than in the words of Linnasus :—“ Utilitatem musci a
nobis descripti ne apud nos quasras, Lector benevole: admireris potius opusculi tam parvi structuram miraculosam,
a SUMMO Ar t if ic e non frustra factam. Integritatem partium hie asque deteges atque in majoris voluminis et
format perfectioribus creatures. Leges matrimoniales hie celebrari videbis. Inspicias modo Capitulum miras structure,
turgidum ventriculi instar, in smu fee turn fovens: ne pereat embrio, ne extinguatur tener fructus, aquam, aerem
et solem vehementer et manifestius, quam forte ullum aliud vegetabile expetit: ita u t diversa elementa junctis aux-
iliis conservation! ejus inserviant. O quam admiranda sunt Opera D iv in a , quam stupenda : e minimis asque
ac e maximis elucentem sapientiam sat dignis enconffis qui poterit mortalium linguas prosequi! ” A-meen. Acad,
ml. 5. p. 90.
* In his Systema Natural, vol. 2. p. 699. + Fundam. Hist. Nat. vol. 2. p. 95.
t Fundam. Hist. Nat. vol. 2. p. 96. § Web. et Mohr FI'. Crypt. Germ. p. 382..
|| Historia Muscorum Frondosorum in Magno Duratu Herbipolitano crescenlium, p. 128.