BRYUM roseura.
Rosaceous Thyme Thread-moss.
CRYPTOGAMIA Musci.
Gen. Char. Outer fr in g e o f 16 teeth, broadest at the
b a s e ; inner a toothed membrane, Flowers terminal.
Capsule ovate-oblong, smooth. Veil smooth.
Spec. Char. Stem somewhat proliferous. Leaves
crowded, stellate, ovate, acute, minutely d o tte d ;
finely serrated towards the summit. Lid conical.
Syn. Bryum roseum. Schreb. Lips. 84. Swartz.
Muse. Suec. 51. Sm. FI. B r it. 1370. Turn.
Muse. Hib. 132 .
B , serpyllifolium 5. Huds. 492.
B. proliferum. Sibth. 292.
B. stellare roseum majus, capsulis ovatis pendulis.
B ill. Muse. 411. t. 52. f . 77.
B . roseum majus, foliis oblongis. B ail Syn. 92.
M n ium roseum. Hedw. Sp. Muse. 194.
M . proliferum. With. 806. Abbot. 235.
M . serpyllifolium y . Linn. S p .P l. 1578. H u ll. 250.
j\j/T H O U G H this species of Bryum may be occasionally
met with in the moist parts of woods and heaths, the capsules
are so exceedingly rare, that Dillenius appears to have procured
them but once from his friend L. Brown, who found
them at Christmas-time, near Bishop’s-Castle. We are therefore
happy to profit by Swedish specimens of Dr. Swartz.
The stems are simple, erect, an inch or two high, perennial,
brown, bearing many small scattered scales, and at the top a
starry tuft of numerous, large, broad, pointed, finely dotted
leaves, whose upper part is finely serrated, and their entire
base somewhat decurrent. The fruitstalks grow, solitary or in
pairs, from the centre among the leaves, and are about two
inches high. Capsule inclining, ovate, smooth, red brown.
Lid, according to Dillenius, convex, but short. The top of
each stem often throws up a vertical shoot, bearing leaves and
fruit the next year. The barren stems described in FI. Brit,
prove to belong to a different plant.