44 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



Horsetails of our waste grounds, damp woods, and 

 ditch-sides, in Carboniferous times acquired both 

 woody growth and a height that would overtop most 

 modern British trees. Grasses still grow to tree height 

 in tropical regions, as witness the Bamboos ; and the 

 Ferns, under such favourable circumstances as New 

 Zealand and other places afford, have managed to 

 retain their arboreal supremacy, although elsewhere 

 they have had to submit to fate and descend to 

 the level of humble plants — ^just as we find many 

 " Howards," " Talbots," " Goodwins," etc., now working 

 among our ordinary population for less than a pound 

 a week ! Humboldt thought that in primeval times 

 Lichens might have had arboreal dimensions and 

 magnitude, and that geologists would ultimately find 

 them. But this prophecy of nearly half a century 

 ago has not been realised. Perhaps the Lichens are 

 taking it out in time instead of size, for no plants, 

 not even the Californian " big trees," extend through 

 a longer existence than these " gray patches " on the 

 rocks of our hills and mountains. As to the Mosses, 

 nobody has yet expected they would find primeval 

 specimens 50 feet high — small in comparison with 

 Palaeozoic Horsetails. The extraordinary geogra- 

 phical distribution of even individual species of 

 Mosses may be regarded as quite sufficient, and that 

 mere individual bigness is not worth striving for in 

 the face of such a fact. 



Individttal growth is of the first importance ; for 



