6 BRITISH MOSSES. 



What then is a Moss ? This is a question not to be 

 hastily answered, and will I think be best answered at 

 the end and not at the beginning of this paper. If you 

 are working deductively, your definitions may come at the 

 beginning; but if by patient investigation into natural 

 facts, beware of starting with definitions they ought to 

 be the ripest fruit of your longest labour. 



Classification. Vegetable productions are commonly 

 divided into two great groups : those which possess obvious 

 blossoms, or Phanerogams, and those which possess no 

 obvious blossoms, or Cryptogams. The Cryptogams are 

 again divided into two great groups those whose structure 

 is built up of cells without regularly formed vessels, such 

 as sea weeds, fungi and lichens, the cellular Cryptogams ; 

 and those which, like the ferns and the Club-Mosses, 

 possess, in addition to cells, regularly formed vessels ; 

 these are known as Vascular Cryptogams. 



This brief explanation will be enough to enable the 

 reader to learn from the following table, which is arranged 

 in an ascending rank, something as to the position of the 

 Mosses in the vegetable kingdom, and the principal groups 

 into which they may be divided : 

 TABLE A. 



Series. Orders. Examples. 



