] 20 MOSS ALLIES. 



worts — their delicate structure shrivels up before the 

 heat of summer, and the growing plants and grasses hide 

 them from sight before the heat makes them invisible. 

 In the Chase Wood, near Ross, these plants flourish in 

 perfection, luxuriating alike on the red sandstone rocks, 

 the moist banks, or the tree roots. In some parts of the 

 wood the ground is so steep, that one is glad to stop and 

 rest before climbing higher, and then to examine the 

 treasures of the rocks at one's elbow is a natural recrea- 

 tion. While thus engaged, my eye fell on a number of 

 extremely slender dark green stems. I gathered some, 

 and applied the lens. My first impression was that it 

 was a land Alga, but minute leafy prominences on either 

 side the stems were rendered evident by the lens. The 

 microscope showed them to be heart-shaped leaves 

 entirely clasping the stem with their broad leaves, and 

 clinging so close to it as almost to seem one with it. It 

 was the Heart-leaved liverwort (J. cordifolia). 



Other rocks offered a great variety of minute flowerless 

 plants for inspection, the crop being so abundant that but 

 little of the warm colouring of the rock could be seen, 

 beyond here and there a quartz pebble cropping out of 

 the red sand, like plums from a cake. The Asplenium- 

 like species was there in its glory, embracing mosses and 

 infant ferns ; and under shelter of those comparatively 

 large plants, tiny Lichens like minikin pins, and Liver- 

 worts no taller than velvet pile, grew in microscopic beauty. 

 My lens revealed starry capsules and glassy threads upon 

 the green velvet, so my knife was put in requisition to 

 procure a minute sod of the plant. With the aid of a 

 small microscope, I found my Liverwort fully branched, 



