134 



in modern botany. In the system liere followed, all the different portions of 

 a moss and their structure are taken into account in tlie formation of orders 

 and genera ; the position of the fruit and flowers whether lateral or terminal ; 

 the structure of the fruit, and that of the leaf cells aud vegetable tissue. This 

 last has come to play an important part in recent sy.stems, though more or 

 less overlooked by older authors : and its utility to the student, in the frequent 

 case of mosses extremely rare in fruit, does not need to be enlarged upon. 



I may be allowed to conclude with a quotation which, though it is well 

 known, yet deserves, from the singular beauty of its language, a place in every 

 bryologist's memory : — 



"We have found beauty iu the tree yielding fruit, and in the herb yielding 

 seed ; how of the herb yielding no seed, the fruitless, flowerless lichen of the rock ? 

 Lichen and mosses (though these last in their luxuriance are deep and rich as 

 herbage, yet both for the most part humblest of the green things that live), 

 how of these ? Meek creatures ! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed 

 softness its dintless rocks ; creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender 

 honour the scarred disgrace of ruin — laying quiet finger on the trembling stones to 

 teach them rest. No words that I know of will say what these mosses are : 

 none are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How is one 

 to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming green, the starred divisions of 

 rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the rock-spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass 

 — the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, arborescent, 

 burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken 

 change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of 

 grace? They will not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love-token; 

 but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child its pillow. " 



" And as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to us. When 

 all other service is vain from plant and tree, the soft mosses and grey lichen take 

 up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing 

 grasses, have done their parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees for 

 the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, moss for 

 the grave." 



"Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured 

 of the earth-children. Unfading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and the 

 autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither 'olanch in heat nor pine in 

 frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the 

 dark eternal tapestries of the hills ; to them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender 

 framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned 

 rock, they share also its endurance ; and while the winds of departing spring 

 scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dries on the 

 parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip-gold, — far above among the mount- 

 ains the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like on the stone ; and the gathering orange 

 stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand 

 years." 



