86 NOTE ON ZYGODON FORSTERI MITT.
in Somerset, and in the following year was able to conduct Mr.
E. M. Holmes to the spot, when the moss was again found growing
on the rotten top of a gate-post at the entrance to the field.
In September 1882, at one of the early field meetings of our
Club, Mr. E. M. Holmes re-discovered this interesting moss in
fruit in Monk Wood, in Epping Forest,1 "on the root of an old
tree, where water collects in little depressions among the roots" ;
what sort of tree not being noticed, but believed to be beech; and
at a later field-meeting in the same neighbourhood the plant was
again (in March 1896) seen by Mr. Holmes.
Zygodon forsteri has also been recorded by Mr. H. N. Dixon on
a beech near the "Wake Arms," about one mile distant from
Mr. Holmes' station, growing on a vertical wet strip of trunk
down which rain travels ; Mr. Dixon's date of collection was
July 8th 1884.
In 1902 a variety of this species (var. sendtneri Dixon) was
found at Burnham Beeches, Bucks., by Mr. W. E. Nicholson,
of Lewes.
The above are, so far as I have been able to trace, the only
records of this rare moss from the United Kingdom, although it
has been found rarely on the Continent, growing on a variety of
trees.
Mrs. Thompson's specimens were met with on Nov. 5th 1911,
in Little Monk Wood, growing, with an alga, on the wet margins
of and below a hole near the base of a beech bole, from which
water issues in wet weather ; two small developing capsules
were present. Three weeks later, on Nov. 26th, I was myself
fortunate enough to find other fruiting specimens growing on
another beech trunk about 135 yards distant from the first, and
under similar damp conditions to those mentioned by Dixon. A
drawing of the leaf-structure of the first met with specimens
was sent, with an actual plant, to Mr. E. M. Holmes, and was
unhesitatingly identified by him as Zygodon forsteri (type).
During January of the present year (1912) my wife and I have
found other flourishing specimens of this moss, growing at 8 feet
above the ground on two beech-trunks in Great Monk Wood, and
in abundant young fruit. These later finds, on being forwarded
to Mr. H. N. Dixon, were referred by him to his variety, sendtneri,
which had hitherto only been recorded from Burnham Beeches
1Trans. Essex Field Club, III., pp. lxii. and lxiii.