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POLYTRICHUM piliferum.
Bristle-leaved Hair-moss.
/So
CRYPTOGAMIA Musa.
Gen. C h a r . Outer fringe of 32 or 64 short incurved
teeth: inner a flat undivided membrane. Veil generally
double: the outer hairy.
S p e c . C h a r . Leaves lanceolate, rigid, entire, tipped
with a white hair. Capsule quadrangular, on a
depressed pedestal.
S y n . Polytrichum piliferum. Schreb. FI. Lips. 74.
Menz. Tr. o f Linn, Soc. v. 4. 75. Hedw. Sp.
Muse. 90. IMI.&47. Sibth.306. Ehrh.Crypt.92.
P. commune, y. Linn. Sp. PI. 1573. Huds. 470.
With. 796.
P. quadrangulare minus, Juniperi foliis pilosis. Dill.
Muse. 426. t. 54. f . 3.
C o m m o n on dry mountainous sandy heaths and open
places, which are enlivened in the winter and early spring by
its red protruding veils and crimson stalks, elegantly contrasted
with the dark leaves.
The roots are long and downy, deeply fixed in the earth.
Stems simple, or according to the remark of Dr. Schwaegri-
chen (the learned editor of Hedwig) sometimes branched.
They are scarcely more than half an inch or an inch high,
Their summit is thickly clothed with deep-green, lanceolate,
revolute, entire leaves, each tipped with a slender white hair,
longest and most waved in the upper ones. Fruit-stalk an inch
or somewhat more in length, rigid, deep-red. Capsule ovate,
quadrangular, erect, green, standing on a depressed fleshy
pedestal of a dark red. Lid conical. Outer veil brownish
with a red or golden tinge.
If there be any certainty of species among Mosses at all,
we conceive this must be distinct from P. commune, and that
the characters above noted in the leaves are sufficient to discriminate
them, without adverting to their totally different
size, habit and appearance.