The Mosses of Washington County, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Some years ago the Herbarium of Washington and Jefferson College was enriched by the presentation of a collection of mosses made by Professors A. Linn and A. Simonton, then of the Faculty. Included in the gift were representative species of the mosses of Washington County, Pa. Professors Linn and Simonton published very little of their extended observations, but circulated among their friends a printed preliminary list of the mosses found in this region. A co-author of this list, Professor J. S. Simonton, Emeritus, Washington and Jefferson College, before his death gave me permission to revise it and place it in publication.2 This was especially desirable both on account of developments in nomenclature and because mistakes in identification and locality in the original list had evidently been copied in Porter's Catalogue,3 and from thence into Jennings' Manual of the Mosses of Western Pennsylvania. Revision has been accomplished with the aid of Jennings' Manual,4 following in general the same taxonomic standard-that of Warnstosf, Ruhland and Broas given in Engler and Prantl's Die Natuerlichen Pflanzenfamilien, Teil I, Abteilung III. While Professors Linn and Simonton rarely collected in the same localities of Washington County as did Dr. Jennings, the latter found many species which they did. The species starred (*) in the following list represent those published by Jennings alone as occurring in Washington County; the other species listed are substantiated by specimens in the Herbarium of the College.