1. A kind of _Hypnum_ or _Polytrichum_, with a branched stem bearing flowers in the form of shields. (_Mnium fontanum Sp. Pl. Bartramia fontana Fl. Brit._ The male plant.)
From the root arises an oblique stem (a) about half an inch long, entirely clothed with very sharp-pointed leaves. From thence the main stem (b) grows perpendicularly to the height of an inch, of a purple colour, clothed with ovate, acute, membranous, whitish scales, each half embracing the stem. Between the bases of these is a solitary line or rib, into which they are inserted in an alternate order. I imagine the oblique part of the stem (a) to be of autumnal or winter growth, and the upright portion (b) to have been put forth in summer or spring. At the summit of the latter stands a sort of blossom (c), composed of six scales, of which the three lower are opposite and shortest; the three upper larger, ovate, pointed, somewhat spreading, permanent, of a whitish green colour. Within these scales or petals is a flat, or slightly convex, disk, composed of innumerable very slender whitish filaments with reddish tips, much shorter than the surrounding scales. Can these filaments be the stamens? They are by no means rudiments of leaves. One, two or three branches grow out at the base of this flower, the latter being for the most part perennial, and go through the same mode of growth and flowering as the parent plant. The calyx therefore, contrary to the nature of the common _Polytrichum_, is proliferous from its base.
It is curious that all the flowers, in each tuft composed perhaps of a hundred plants, rise exactly to the same level. It is also remarkable that the new stems form a similar angle to that made by the growth of the preceding year (d), so that the whole assemblage of them is as regularly disposed as a body of soldiers.
2. This moss (_Bartramia fontana_, the female plant) agrees in many respects with the preceding, but differs in the following particulars. The roots or shoots of the preceding year are quite black, while those of the present season are of a paler or whitish green; nor are the scaly leaves so far remote from each other as that the red stem appears so regularly between them. The plants are also more branched, and less curved. In the last place, this is a fruit-bearing kind, having purple stalks two inches long, each of which sustains a globular head, larger than usual in mosses, bent obliquely, and of a green colour. The _calyptra_ or veil is remarkably small, smooth, and membranous.