186i MALVERN BOTANY. 'i.«TZa [Jurie, 



I must refer to the Malvern Botany for a catalogue of the Mosses 

 there given, to which one has been since added — the Bryum 

 alpinum — which is located in reddish patches at the northern' 

 base of the Herefordshire Beacon. Encalypta streptocarpa and 

 Bidymodon flexicaulis are confined to the Silurian limestone 

 at the western bases of the hills ; while the rare Zygodon Mou- 

 geotii only forms its round cushiony tufts upon a wet rock of 

 the Worcestershire Beacon. 



The Lichen and the Moss, then, must be acknowledged as the 

 pioneers of vegetation on every bare rocky surface, and the depth 

 of mould with which they have covered the once hard and bare 

 ribs of our Malvern Hills suggests a long period for their ac- 

 cumulated action — but on this I forbear to speculate, being 

 averse to " time bargains " as much in geology as on tlie Stock 

 Exchange. Yet whatever Lichens and Mosses commenced to do 

 has been carried on by the Grasses, that vegetated here as soon 

 as circumstances gave the slightest covering on which their seeds- 

 could rest — '^ii NTBy 11601 aiuoi sd-t 



" Green leaves every one 

 Spread in their countless thousands to the sun, 

 Still growing, and no soUtary blade 

 Of all their verdure ever disobeyed 

 The law of Nature : ev'ry stalk that Ufts 



Its head above the mould enjoys the gifts .\ ,.\ , ^ 17 



Of liberal Heaven — the rain, the dew, the light." ' ■ '' \ .^ 



And what is the "law of Nature^' that they have 'to fulfil? 

 Let any one pull up a tuft of grass, and mark the innumerable 

 fibres of its roots, graduating into the finest hairs, spreading into . 

 every cranny pushing out on every side, and all loaded with the 

 minute particles of the soil that they have broken up and elabo- 

 rated through the rain that has filtered down over their leaves 

 into the moistened earth below. The rain itself is loaded with 

 fragmentary particles of fertility, which are received and trea- 

 sured by . the leaves of the humble plants on which they fall, 

 and so ultimately placed in the recesses of the earth. So ' 

 month after month soil accumulates, a nutriment for other - 

 plants ever seeking where they can find unappropriated suste- ' 

 nance. As an instance of the penetrating power of roots in '"' 

 urging their course downwards to break up the soil, however hard, 

 on which they may be located, I may refer to a round tuft "of '^' 

 grass from these hills, represented in Knapp's delightful *" Jbui"-' ' 



