

The Plant World, 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



Vol. 1. OCTOBER;i897. No. l 



THE SWORD MOSS. 

 Bj' Elizabeth G. Br it ton. 



IN July, 1883, while traveling with some friends, I first made the 

 acquaintance of this rare moss near Kilbourn City, in the Dells of 

 the Wisconsin river. The rocks are of Potsdam sandstone and 



are worn away by the swiftly flowing river and its icy current in 

 the winter, into all sorts of fantastic shapes. A short distance up the 

 river, two tributary streams flow into it forming narrow winding ra- 

 vines which are known locally as "Witches' Gulch " and "Cold Water 

 Canyon." These names but faintly suggest their picturesque charac- 

 ter. The rocks are worn away in the greatest diversity of curves and 

 angles, sometimes meeting overhead in a series of broken curves like 

 Moorish arches, and hollowed out below into dark caves, where it is 

 necessary to creep along on narrow planks and climb upon slippery 

 ladders to another basin above. These follow each other in rapid 

 succession and wind around and about. Sometimes the ravine is open 

 and wider and the shelves are covered with rock-tripe and the ledges 

 draped with Polypody. On these shaded ledges along the stream, 

 dripping with moisture, grow ferns and mosses in greatest profusion. 

 Here I found that delicate little fern, Cystoptcris fragilis, large and 

 abundant, and rarer still, Pellcea gracilis. The vertical faces of the 

 crumbling sandstone were hung with sheets of the Sword-moss, its 

 long, twisted, terminal leaves showing where the fruit might be looked 

 for. 



The finding of the fruit of this moss was not accidental, for the 

 first day that we visited the Dells I did not know that the fruit had 

 never been collected. But I remembered to have seen an illustration 

 of the plant in the back of my inanual ( Gray's 5th ed.), and as soon 

 as we returned to the hotel at Kilbourne City that night, I looked it 

 up and was so anxious to search for the fruit that I prevailed on my 



