Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

ioo NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
' Some genera of mosses, absent in the plains,
began to appear in the lower forest zone of the
Andes. For example, those splendid mosses of
the genera Phyllogonium, Rhacophilum, and Hypopterygium,
all of which, by their primary leaves
arranged in double rows, and in the latter- named
genera accompanied by stipulated folioles, appeared
at first sight to be Hepaticse rather than true mosses.
Among
other mosses which are met with in the
Andes of Peru, but which are never found in the
plain, are Helicophyllum, Disticophyllum, Cryphaea,
Pterobryum, Entodon, Fabronia, etc. The Tortulse,
represented along the banks of the Amazon, but
very rarely, by the single T. agraria, begin
to be
less scarce ; also the genus Bryum, of which the
B. coronatitin and a barren form of B. argenteum are
the only species found on the Amazon.
"With regard to the Hepaticse, while the Lejeuneae
are almost as abundant as upon the banks of the
Amazon, and still show the same preference for the
living leaves of trees, the Frullanise, of the subgenus
Thyopsiella (which are related to our F.
tamarisci\ appear there for the first time. Among
other genera of the Eastern Andes which are
never seen in the plains may be named Porella,
Herberta, Mytilopsis, Adelanthus, Leioscyphus,
Jungermannia, Scalia, Marchantia, Dendroceros,
and Anthoceros. Lepidozia, which is represented
in the plain by a microscopic species (and that
found only once !), is met with in the mountains of
Tarapoto in the form of large and elegant species."
On examining Spruce's descriptive catalogue
of the plants which he collected, and which are
numbered consecutively, I find that there are