MOSSES 



like plant appears much like the prothallium of the 

 fern. Soon buds of young moss plants appear. On 

 these the plants grow and produce spores which in 

 their turn fall to the ground and grow into new plants. 

 Roots will grow from any part of a moss plant that 

 is kept dark and moist. Often roots and new plants 

 will grow from a leaf that is broken off. Mosses thus 

 spread very rapidly. 



TREE MOSSES 



Do you remember that we said there were mosses 

 that looked like small trees? The picture shows you 

 some of these. See what long roots they have. Do they 

 not look like the slender creeping rootstocks of some 

 ferns ? The little treelike plants come up from this 

 underground stem in the same way that fern fronds 

 spring up from their rootstocks. Because this moss is 

 so much like little trees it is called tree moss. 



Notice how the stems bearing the capsules come out 

 from among the green leaves at the side of the stem. 

 There are quite a number of our mosses whose capsules 

 grow in this way. The tree mosses are among the larg- 

 est of these. The capsules nearly always stand up 

 straight at the ends of their long stems. When young 

 the capsules are green, but as the spores ripen they turn 

 brown. The beak at the top has a long point. When 



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