CRYPTOGAMIC VEGETATION. 3 



and extends from pole to pole. On the contrary 

 they are sometimes despised for their insignificance, 

 rejected for their lack of utility, and trampled to 

 death for their ubiquitous presence as the scavengers 

 and regenerators of the vegetable world. 

 ' But they are not wholly lacking in their contribu- 

 tion even to the beauty of vegetation. In all countries 

 the ferns supply a green and graceful undergrowth, 

 or garnish decaying trunks. The mosses cover, what 

 would otherwise be naked and barren tracts, with a 

 soft velvety carpet of a fresh and lively green, or dis- 

 guise the ugliness of fallen and lifeless trunks by 

 covering them with a new garment of life. The 

 naked rocks, up to the limits of eternal snow, the 

 bleak moorland, and crumbling ruins of a past genera- 

 tion are redeemed from dreariness by the perennial 

 lichens. The waters of the ocean, capable of support- 

 ing no other forms of vegetable life, are redeemed 

 from sterility by the presence everywhere of the sea- 

 weeds, which furnish food and shelter to myriads of 

 aquatic animals. Even the fungi, in most cases rather 

 destroyers th^n decorators, contribute something, in 

 their more persistent forms, to the variety, harmony, 

 and even the beauty of woodland vegetation. 



Apart from all this, it must not be forgotten that, 

 even if they are to be relegated to a subsidiary posi- 

 tion as earth's decorators, the Cryptogamia have a 

 mission to fulfil, which may be as important, if not 

 as evident, as that of the Phanerogamia. It is possible 

 to demonstrate that the whole aquatic animal life is 

 as dependent upon aquatic vegetation as terrestrial 

 animal life is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon 



