40 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



MOSSES. 



THESE pretty little flowerless plants are popu- 

 larly great favourites, and deservedly so, but 

 deficient in very romantic associations, or remarkable 

 life-history. These are so well known in general 

 appearance that, fortunately, general description is 

 unnecessary. The bryologist — that is, the person 

 who studies mosses — recognizes, in addition to the 

 true mosses, two other small groups, viz. bog or peat 

 mosses, and split mosses, or Andreacece, which are 

 included, for our present purpose, in a broad sense, 

 as mosses. 



Going back to Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom" of 

 1847, we find the estimate for all known species at 

 that time to have been about 11 20; whereas British 

 species alone are now more than half that number. 

 A friend, who is addicted to the study of mosses, 

 informs us that he considers eight thousand species 

 to be below the total up to date, and that possibly 

 they might reach to nearly ten thousand for the 

 entire world, as at present known. 



It may be premised that mosses are cellular plants 

 having a distinct stem, furnished with leaves, and 

 prolonged downwards into a root, with the exception 



