THE PAGE OF NATURE. 49 



tened with water, presents under the microscope the 

 most beautiful appearance. 



The peculiarities of these plants are so remarkable and 

 interesting that they deserve more than a passing notice. 

 They do not grow upright in tufts like the mosses, but 

 have a flat, creeping, lichen-like habit, spreading over 

 rocks and trees in closely-applied circles which radiate 

 from a common centre. The whole typical plant is like 

 a series or necklace of roundish flat scales connected at 

 the edges; several of which branch from a common point 

 in the middle. The leaves, unlike those of the mosses, 

 are entirely destitute of a central nerve, for what is 

 called the nervure In the membraneous or leafy species, 

 is nothing more than the stalk itself, on the edges of 

 which the leaves are fastened together in such a manner 

 as to form apparently a continuous whole. They are 

 disposed either in a spiral which turns from left to right, 

 in which case they are called succubous, or in a spiral 

 which turns from right to left, when they receive the 

 name of incubous leaves. In their shape there is a 

 marvellous diversity; and the arrangement and form of 

 the cells is so exquisitely beautiful in almost all the 

 species, that no more pleasing objects can be mounted 

 for the microscope. In some species they are furnished 

 with radicles or rootlets along the whole length of their 

 under side. Their substance is very loosely cellular, 

 easily reviving, after being dried, by the application of 

 moisture. Their colour varies from a pale white to the 

 darkest green and the deepest and most brilliant red 

 and purple; sea-green, however, being the prevailing 

 hue. The fruit-vessel is as interesting and suggestive of 



