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PHASCUM axillare.
Lateral-fruited Earth-Mofs.
' CRYPTOGAMIA Mußt.
Spec. Char. Capfule ovate, without any feparate
lid, deciduous. Veil minute, deciduous.
S pec. Char. Stem Ample, leafy. Leaves awl-fhaped,
keeled, fpreading. Fruit-ftalk lateral. Capfule
elliptical, drooping.
Syn . Phafcum axillare. Dickf. Crypt, fafc. i . z. t. 1.
/ • 3*
P . nitidum. Hedw. Crypt, v. 1. 91. t. 3 4 . Sp.
Mufc. 19. With. 7 87 . Hull. 252.
F IR S T difcovered by Mr. Dickfon in. moift places upon
heaths. We gathered thefe fpecimens in Kenlington gardens
early in March.
The root is fibrous. Stem folitary, Ample, leafy, flowering
when about a line in height; but being immediately extended
two or three lines higher in one Ample continued branch, the
fruit-ftalk becomes lateral, or apparently axillary; and this
circumftance affording a peculiar and ftriking mark of the
fpecies, we prefer Mr. Dick ton’s name axillare, as more ex-
prefiive as well as older than Hedwig’s; though we are well
aware of the truth of that great phyliologift’s obfervation, that
the fructification in this, as in other Pbafca, is originally
terminal. The leaves are numerous, alternate, rather fpreading,
awl-fhaped, keeled, entire, beardlefs, of a tranfparent bright
green. Fruit-ftalk fhorter than the leaves, moftly folitary,
rarely (as Hedwig alfo obferves) two together, recurved.
Capfule elliptical, pointed, brown when ripe.