42 CRYPTOGAM I A. 



ORDER 2. 



musci. MATTED HYPNUM. The shoots of this moss 



Mosses. are thickly interwoven, and form a close dark green 

 mat on the decayed bark of trees in damp woods. 

 The stalks on which the seed vessels are supported 

 are short and slender, of a reddish colour, scarcely an 

 inch high, and arising out of an oval bulb at the bot- 

 tom ; one of them is given in the annexed plate mag- 

 nified, that the parts may be more distinctly seen. 

 The seed vessel, which is called a capsula, is urn- 

 shaped, with a lid, which when taken off exhibits a 

 margin fringed with numerous teeth. Upon the 

 number of these teeth a celebrated naturalist 13 has 

 founded a new arrangement of this tribe of plants. 

 By the aid of a microscope he has discovered that there 

 is an invariable uniformity in the number of these teeth 

 in the same species. That there should be such an 

 absolute law in the ceconomy of nature in so minute 

 a production, is infinitely interesting to the contempla- 

 tive mind. 



Mosses are found in the hottest and coldest cli- 

 mates. They are extremely tenacious of life ; and 

 after being long dried, by moisture they easily recover 

 their full vigour of vegetation: an experiment was 

 made with success, by Haller, after they had been 

 gathered fifty years. Those mosses which grow on 

 barks of trees take much nourishment from them; 



b Hedwig. 



