'' *
2887.
PHASCUM Floerkeanum.
Floerke’s Phascum.
CRYPTOGAMIA Musci.
Gen. Char. Fruitstalk terminal. Capsule closed
(lid persistent, indehiscent). Peristome none.
Calyptra dimidiate, or sometimes campanulate.
Spec. Char. Stem scarcely any. Leaves crowded,
spreading, ovate-acuminate, concave, nerve excurrent.
Capsule roundish-ovate, with a short
straight beak, almost sessile, immersed in the
leaves. Calyptra mitriform.
Syn. Phascum Floerkeanum. Weber fy Mohr Bot.
Tasch. 70. Schwaegr. Suppl. v. 1. pt. 3. t. 3.
Nees Hornsch. Bryol. Germ. 1. 52. t. 10.
Bruch 8f Schimper Bryol. Europ. fasc. 1. 8.
t. 3.
T h is very interesting addition to our list of British
Phasca is perhaps the very least of all known mosses. Its
discovery in Britain is due to Mr. R. B. Bowman of Newcastle,
who found it in 1840 on the Durham coast, while in
quest of Phascum crassinervium, in fields half-way between
Sunderland and South Shields. It has since been found in
plenty by Mr. Thornhill (whose specimens are here figured)
in fields one mile from Ravensworth Castle in the county of
Durham, growing on clayey deposits in a pasture field occasionally
overflowed by the Team, in November of the same
year.
This moss grows more or less scattered, never actually
crowded together into tufts, and in the colour of the foliage
scarcely differs from the soil on which it is found. It is
scarcely one-fortieth of an inch in height: our specimens