WILD FLOWEES OF 



"raging winter." Tempted alike by the literal and 

 tlie symbolical flower, let the neophyte resist the 

 invitation I give him to search amongst the caves if 

 he can ! 



" Without my love, not a' the charms 



O' Paradise could yield me joy ; 

 But gie me Lucy in my arms, 



And welcome* Lapland's dreary sky. 



My cave would be a lover's bower, 



Though raging winter rent the air 

 And she a lovely little flower, 



That I wad tent and shelter there." * 



One of the most beautiful of the mossy families, 

 and very conspicuous in moist woods or on mountain 

 sides, is Polytriclium, nearly all the members of which 

 have golden-brown hairy calyptra or caps to their urns 

 or capsules, which gives them a singularly splendent 

 appearance, and hence P. commune, the glory of our 

 mossy woods, has been called Goldilocks. It is the 

 largest of the tribe, and where it abounds, door-mats, 

 beesorns, and brooms are formed of its stems, and as 

 furnishing bedding to the Laplanders it has been 

 highly celebrated. 



With this specious family may be contrasted the 

 genus Pkascum, whose capsules scarcely equal the size 

 of a pin's-head, and without lid or fringe, fade almost 

 from unassisted vision ; or the curiously-minute and 

 elegant Gymnostomi, without peristornes, one species 

 of which HASSELQTJIST found so abundantly on the 

 walls of Jerusalem, that he considered it the 

 "hyssop springing out of the wall" that Solomon 

 was acquainted with. 



The Tortulce, seen very frequently on walls, are 



* BURNS. 



