point. When dry they become slightly crisped. The perichætial are larger than the others. The capsule, like that of heteromallum, is cernuous or sub-erect, but in form it differs in being shortly ovate, regular or slightly curved, and having a large lid but shortly rostrate, about as long as the capsule.

Dicranum crispum, or the Curl-leaved Fork-moss, is found in incoherent patches of a green colour; the stems not half an inch high, and scarcely branched. It grows on moist banks in a sandy soil, but is not common. The leaves are not much crowded, widely spreading, wavy and subulate, with a suddenly dilated sheathing base, somewhat glossy and minutely denticulate, the nerve forming the principal portion of the upper parts of the leaf. When dry the leaves are crisped. The capsule is borne erect on a reddish fruit-stalk, ovate or ovateoblong, not strumose, but having an annulus, and furrowed when dry; the lid is conical at the base, as in the rest of the genus, with an oblique awl-shaped beak. The plant is sufficiently distinguished from its allies by the very narrow crisped leaves and erect striated capsule. The inflorescence is monoicus; the barren flower shaped like a small bud.

In the variable Fork-moss, Dicranum varium, the inflorescence is dioicus, the stems short, cespitose, or loosely aggregate, of a rufous green colour, scarcely half an inch long. The leaves are more or less secund, lanceolate, carinate, and entire or slightly toothed at the apex, the margin reflexed, nerve sub-excurrent, the perichætial leaves scarcely sheathing, and hardly differing from the rest. The capsule varies from ovate to oblong, more or less oblique and incurved, slightly tumid at the base, its walls thick and smooth. The fruit-stalk twists to the right; the lid is large, with a short beak. The peristome is large, deeply cleft, and of a deep red colour, the teeth converging. No annulus, and the barren flowered plants are more slender than the fertile ones. Soil and locality make considerable difference in this, one of the commonest species of the genus. Habitat, moist banks.

D. rufescens, or Reddish Fork-moss, has also a dioicous. inflorescence, with short gregarious stems scarcely branched, sub-erect, bright red; leaves almost pellucid, lax, secund, reddish, linear lanceolate, with plane margins, obscurely toothed and loosely cellular. The capsule is erect, smooth ovate, reddish, with a short neck; the lid large, with a short beak; the fruitstalk twisted to the left. The teeth of the peristome are more closely barred than in D. varium, and it is altogether a more elegant moss; this circumstance, joined to its colour, at once distinguishing it, though found in similar spots. All the above species are found in fruit during this month, and it is hoped the above descriptions will suffice to render them easily distinguishable.