PREFACE 



MOSSES AND LICHENS has been written with the hope that it 

 may meet a need often expressed, for a book with pictures 

 which will help to identify some of the many beautiful growths 

 which, winter and summer, in wood and open, excite the 

 admiration and arouse the curiosity of all nature lovers. 



It is the result of the author's desire to know something of 

 the dainty plants which are so lavishly employed by nature in 

 beautifying the trails and brooks of the North woods. The 

 more striking mosses and lichens were collected and carried 

 about until by the kindness of one friend and another "learned 

 in mosses," names were secured for them. 



No book was found which offered an easy path to the 

 knowledge desired. In truth, no book was found which could 

 be used at all until many months of patient labor in a botanical 

 laboratory gave the necessary foundation. 



Then the author, urged on by friends who would have an 

 easy path or none, set to work to make pen-and-ink sketches of 

 bits of moss and details of structure. After a number had been 

 made with some degree of success, a new plan was suggested 

 by experience. An accurate detail was made with the aid of 

 a microscope or was procured from a rare work, Bryologia 

 Europe? ; and with this detail a tuft or cushion on a large scale 

 was built up and then reduced to natural size with a camera. 

 Later, with the success crowning persistent attempts, Mr. J. A. 

 Anderson and Miss H. C. Anderson succeeded in photographing 

 specimens not too small, direct from nature. The plates in the 

 book are the measure of their success. 



Thanks are due to Dr. Lucien M. Underwood, of Columbia 

 University, for his never-failing readiness to give encouragement 

 and valuable assistance; also Mrs. E. G. Britton, who has named 

 most of the mosses collected by the author and has been ever 

 ready to suggest works for reference and to render assistance in 

 other ways. Thanks also are due to Dr. Howe, of the New 



