Musci

Abstract

The number of the mosses as yet known to occur in the island of Bodriguez is thirty-three, of these ten were gathered in a fertile state, the remaining twenty-three being barren. With one exception all the genera are the same as those known from Africa or the Mascarene Islands, and thirteen of the species are identical with those found in those countries. Three species are found also in India and the Indian Archipelago, and seventeen are considered to he new, of these eleven are without fruit, and six fertile. The most interesting moss is the Orthotrichum plicatum, Beauv., before known only from the specimens gathered in Bourbon by Du Petit Thouars, described and well figured by Schwsegrichen; it is undoubtedly a member of the family of the Orthotricha, but its characters as a genus are intermediate, and its position in that family unique. A few species correspond with those from the western coast of tropical Africa, and it appears from what little is yet known of the mosses of the eastern coast that some species have an enormous range in the African continent.