I. MOSS. 25 



bosses that grow in deep velvet ? And there again 

 is another matter not clear to me. One calls them 

 ' velvet ' because they are all brought to an even sur- 

 face at the top. Our own velvet is reduced to such 

 trimness by cutting. But how is the moss trimmed ? 

 By what scissors ? Carefullest Elizabethan gardener 

 never shaped his yew hedge more daintily than the 

 moss fairies smooth these soft rounded surfaces of 

 green and gold. And just fancy the difference, if 

 they were ragged ! If the fibres had every one of 

 them leave to grow at their own sweet will, and to 

 be long or short as they liked, or, worse still, urged 

 by fairy prizes into laboriously and agonizingly 

 trying which could grow longest. Fancy the surface 

 of a spot of competitive moss ! 



16. But how is it that they are subdued into that 

 spherical obedience, like a crystal of wavellite ? * 

 Strange — that the vegetable creatures growing so 

 fondly on rocks should form themselves in that 

 mineral-like manner. It is true that the tops of 

 all well-grown trees are rounded, on a large scale, 

 as equally; but that is because they grow from a 

 central stem, while these mossy mounds are made 

 out of independent filaments, each growing to 

 exactly his proper height in the sphere — short ones 



* The reader should buy a small specimen of this mineral ; it is 

 a useful type of many structures. 



