863 



Account of the Mosses and Lichens of the Malvern Hills. 

 By Edwin Lees, Esq., F.L.S * 



The Mosses, denominated by Linnaeus " Servi," or humble hand- 

 maids in the economy of Nature, have exercised a considerable 

 agency in the accumulation of the soil now upon the Malvern Hills ; 

 doubtless, indeed, they were the primary originators of vegetation 

 upon the bare rocks, whose hollows they have filled up in the lapse 

 of ages with a soft spongy carpet, and so encompassed and obscured 

 them, that numerous masses of gray rock, almost immersed in the 

 verdant mossy inundation, now scarcely exhibit their points above it. 

 The lichens have been generally considered as the first pioneers of 

 vegetation, but their efforts to create a htimus for the nourishment of 

 other plants are but trifling when compared with the economical 

 powers of the mosses. To test this by experiment, I took a tuft of 

 Bryum capillare, Linn., from the roof of an outhouse at Malvern 

 Wells, which was abundantly studded with it, together with the black 

 earth collected about its base. The mass altogether weighed six 

 ounces, but when after repeated and careful washings I had extracted 

 all, or nearly all, the black mould that enveloped the roots, the actual 

 residuum of frondescence that remained when weighed amounted 

 only to half an ounce ; thus satisfactorily showing that the moss, 

 through atmospherical and imbral agency, had formed a soil exceed- 

 ing its own weight at the very least above ten times ! I had reason 

 to believe, too, that this had been accomplished within three, or four 

 years at most. By operations on a more extensive scale, it is easily 

 conceivable how a bare mass of rock may, in the course of a few years, 

 be covered with a thick coating of soil sufficient for the nourishment 

 of any of the phanerogamous species, adapted to the climate and ele- 

 vation where they may stand. Bryum hornum has been noticed to 

 be a great accumulator of soil in marshy spots ; while the excessive 

 growth alone of such mosses as Sphagnum palustre, Dicranum glau- 

 cum, Bryum palustre, Hypnum molluscumj scorpioides, cuspidatum, 

 &c., in the course of time entirely fills up bogs, drinks up their water, 

 and conduces to their ultimate establishment as component parts of 

 terra Jirma, fit for useful cultivation. In this manner, then, have the 

 originally bare crags of the Malvern Hills received that rich humus 

 now covering their sides, and which, combined with the disintegrating 



* From 'The Botany and Geology of Malvern, by Edwin Lees, F.L.S.' 



