20 l'ROSERPINA. 



ii. But there is one minor division yet. You 

 see I have drawn the central part of the moss 

 plant (b, Fig. 2,) half in outline and half in black ; 

 and that, similarly, in the upper group, which is 

 too small to show the real roots, the base of the 

 cluster is black. And you remember, I doubt 

 not, how often, in gathering what most invited 

 gathering, of deep green, starry, perfectly soft 

 and living wood-moss, you found it fall asunder 

 in your hand into multitudes of separate threads, 

 each with its bright green crest, and long root of 

 blackness. 



That blackness at the root — though only so 

 notable in this wood-moss and collateral species, 

 is indeed a general character of the mosses, with 

 rare exceptions. It is their funeral blackness ; — 

 that, I perceive, is the way the moss leaves die. 

 They do not fall — they do not visibly decay. But 

 they decay zwvisibly, in continual secession, be- 

 neath the ascending crest. They rise to form that 

 crest, all green and bright, and take the light and 

 air from those out of which they grew ; — and those, 

 their ancestors, darken and die slowly, and at last 

 become a mass of mouldering ground. In fact, as 

 I perceive farther, their final duty is so to die. 

 The main work of other leaves is in their life, — 

 but these have to form the earth out of which all 



