BRITISH MOSSES. 7 



From this table it will be gathered that the Mosses, 

 using that word in its wide signification, stand at the head 

 of the cellular cryptogams, and that above them are the 

 vascular cryptogams, of which, as I have already said, the 

 ferns are one of the best-known groups. From these 

 vascular cryptogams the Mosses are, however, separated 

 by a distance which Goebel has described as a chasm " the 

 widest with which we are acquainted in the whole vegetable 

 kingdom." Perhaps, however, at some future time it may 

 be found that even over this gulf Nature has thrown some 

 slender bridge. 



From the table it will be further seen that the larger 

 group of the Muscinese divides itself into three principal 

 smaller groups : the Hepaticeas or Liverworts, the Sphag- 

 naceae or Turf Mosses, and the Musci or true Mosses Urn- 

 Mosses, as they have been called, from the form of their 



FIG. 1. Hypnum : a Pleurocarpous Moss, after Dillenius. ar. Position 

 of the Archegones. c c. Capsules. 



capsule. These three divisions the Germans conveniently 

 name as Leber-Moose, Torf-Moose, and Laub-Moose. 



