G YM N OSTO M UM osm u n d acemn,
Fern-leaved Beardless-moss.
CRYPTOGAMIA Musd.
G e n . Ch a r . Caps, w i t h o u t a f r i n g e . L id d e c i d u o u s ,
Veil s e p a r a t i n g e n t i r e f r o m t h e b a s e .
Spec. Char. S t e m p e r f e c t l y s i m p l e , e l o n g a t e d ; n a k e d
a t t h e b a s e . \ L e a v e s a c u t e , t w o - r a n k e d . C a p s u l e
r o u n d i s h . L i d p o i n t l e s s .
Syn. Gymnpstomum osmundaceum. Hoffrn. Germ,
v. 2 . 2 8 . Sm. FI. Brit. 1 1 6 1 .
G . p e n n a t u m . Hedw. Sp. Muse. 3 1 . Crypt, v. 1. 7 7 .
t. 2 9 .
M n i u m o s m u n d a c e u m . Dicks. Crypt, fasc . 1. 3. t. 1.
f . 4 . H. Sice. fasc. 12. 2 1 .
B r y u m p e n n a t u m . With. 8 2 1 . Hull. 259»
D i c k s o n i a p u s i l l a . Ehrh. Crypt. 64.
N o n e of our British Mosses is more elegant, scarcely any
so rare as the present, which has heen found in Devonshire
only, by the Rev. Mr. Newberry, in the road from Zele to
South Tawton church, four miles from Okehampton. It ripens
fruit in the early part of summer, and is annual, or, according
to Hedwig, biennial. This distinguished author changed the
specific name given by Mr. Dickson, who first described the
plant; but Hoffmann properly restored it, and we gladly follow
him. Ehrhart dedicated it, as a genus, to Mr. Dickson, but
we know not how he distinguished, it from his own Pottia,
hereafter described l. 2214.
The root consists of several capillary, often branched, fibres.
Stems in lax tufts, half an inch high, erect, simple, thread-
shaped, leafless in the lower part. Leaves lanceolate, acute,
entire, flat, ribless, vertical, spreading in two ranks, resembling
some kind of, fern. Flowers terminal, dioecious, each surrounded
with several acute spreading leaves, which form a sort
o f scaly sheath to the base of the fruitstalk. The capsule is
almost globular, erect, delicately shaped and reticulated. Lid,
according to Hedwig, very thin, slightly convex, pointless,
at length revolute and torn at the edges.
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