122
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
rubbish heaps for some time, I noticed that it suddenly took
possession of a dry sandy hedge-row at Bergholt, and a little
later established itself by a similar hedge at Boxted, also near
Colchester, and also beside a hedge S.E. of Colchester, thus
becoming a permanent plant in that district. An interesting
point connected with this plant is that, in its native country
(California), it is found in boggy woody situations, such as many
xerophites are found in, the humic acids contained in such soils
necessitating the plants obtaining moisture from the air. At
Danbury Common, in Essex, and on' Surrey heaths, the plant
has also adapted itself to dry sandy soils. Thus we have a
xerophitic plant which, after spending a period as a casual,
appears to have adapted itself, by some process of mutation, to a
xerophitic situation of a dry, instead of a boggy, character."
Fruiting of Leucobryum glaucum in Epping Forest.
—In my paper on "The Mosses of Essex" I pointed out (Essex
Naturalist, xiv. (1906), p. 212), that, though the moss Leuco-
bryum glaucum, common in parts of Epping Forest and conspicuous
on account of the roundish cushions of greenish gray which it
forms under the trees, had been recorded as fruiting in the Forest
by Mr. English, all his specimens showed only the fruit of Webera
nutans growing up through the tuft. Evidently the intimate
admixture had led Mr. English into an error.
The only record remaining was one by Mr. Waller in Essex
Naturalist, vi. (1881), but no specimen existed in the public
herbaria and I was not able to verify the record. Now, thanks
to the keen and diligent observation of Mrs. Percy Thompson,
all doubt as to the fruiting of this moss in Essex is set at rest;
for she has discovered fruits in Epping Forest, and specimens
have been sent to the British Museum and deposited in the Club's
Herbarium; in addition to which, one has kindly been sent to me.
This conspicuous moss occurs on wet heaths and woods all
over the British Isles; but, though the plant is so common, a
search for its little fruits is rarely rewarded. It has been found in
fruit occasionally in many parts of the British Isles, but probably
nowhere fruits so abundantly as in the moist western counties,
as in North Wales, where I have seen great masses of it, covered
with capsules, growing on the overhanging banks of the deep
wooded valleys of mountain streams.—Fred. J. Chittenden,