TORTULA stellata.
Starry Farrowed Screzv-inoss.
CRYPTOGAMIA Musci.
Gen. Char. Fringe simple, o f numerous capillary
teeth, spirally and repeatedly twisted together.
Spec. Char. Stem none. Leaves ovate, keeled, incurved.
Capsule erect, ovate, somewhat cy lin drical,
furrowed. Lid oblique.
Syn. Tortula stellata. Sm. F l. Brit. 1254.
Bryum stellatum. Dicks. Crypt, fasc. 2 . 6 ; excluding
the synonyms. With. 812. Hull. 257.
w E feel ourselves particularly obliged to Mr. Dickson for
enabling us to give a figure of a moss, concerning which there
has been so much controversy and error as the present. He
only has found it, about banks and by the sides of rivers
in Scotland. We have struck out his synonyms, which Hed-
wig has justly observed to be confused. In fact they belong
to three different species. But Hedwig has fallen into a much
more unaccountable error, in asserting Mr. Dickson’s plant
to be not different from that in our i. 2382, T. convolula,
which the slightest inspection will refute.
Whether the roots of our T. stellata be annual or perennial
is not known, but the plants are small, without stems, growing
in patches. Leaves radical, broad-ovate, concave, blunt-
ish, entire, somewhat tapering at the base, of a shining green,
strongly reticulated, and furnished with a stout red midrib,
but no point. Fruitstalks solitary, central, reddish, half an
inch high. Capsule ovate rather than cylindrical, singular in
the whole genus, if we mistake not, for being strongly and
regularly furrowed lengthwise, like that of a Mnium. The
lid is oblique,-as long as the capsule. Fringe light red-brown,
nearly of the same length. Veil much longer.—No-figure of
this moss has yet been published.