CHAPTER XIII. 



MOSSES. 



" Let long grass grow around the roots, to keep them 



Moist, cool and green ; and shade the violets, 



That they may bind the moss in leafy nets." 



Keats. 



Y last ramble with my cousin was in a sub-alpin< 



wood on the Spring End Farm, called Silk- 

 wood, She guided me thither in the hope of 

 finding Feather mosses, which, she said, were particularly 

 beautiful there : all this extensive family have curved fruit- 

 stalks, and the urns are generally slightly bent ; their 

 fringe is double ; the veil splits on one side, the stems 

 are creeping and tufted ; the lid is cone-shaped, and 

 most of the species ripen their fruit in the winter, or 

 early in the spring. Fanny produced a specimen of the 

 Rusty Feather moss (Hypnuni plumosum) which had 

 been sent to her from Teesdale : its stems are branched. 

 and the branches elongated. The Rouo-h- stalked Feather 

 moss she had found in Wiltshire (H. rutabulum) ; it is a 

 showy moss, with procumbent stems, arched, and often 

 rooting at the extremity ; the leaves are pale green, 

 concave, and pointed ; and the fruit-stalk is very rough. 

 We came upon a lovely cushion formed of Swartz's 

 Feather moss, and the prolonged Feather moss ; they were 

 not in fruit, but their feather-like branches interlacino; 



