256 THE MOUNTAIN. 



This imperfectly elaborated catalogue of genera embraces 

 more than half of the described North American mosses. 

 It will be increased, no doubt, largely by future and more 

 critical explorations, as many of them are exceedingly mi- 

 nute plants, with shy habits, and requiring great patience 

 and vigilance to discover them. These genera contain a 

 number of species, many of which are found on the moun- 

 tain, thus giving an extensive list of mosses for that lo- 

 cality. A number of them are of great beauty, and 

 widely distributed. Sometimes they show matted masses 

 resembling forests of miniature pines ; again, microscopic 

 cane-brakes, or laurel thickets, investing with their delicate 

 tree-shaped stems the rocks and ground. Considerable 

 spaces of the surface are grown over by some of the spe- 

 cies, as the earth is covered by grass. Others, again, are 

 found on trees, covering their trunks and branches, while 

 there are those that inhabit fountains and brooks, and 

 occupy the surfaces of rocks and fallen timber, envelop- 

 ing whole prostrate trunks with mantles of variously tinted 

 plush, or robes of delicate light-green feathers. Thus, as 

 objects of grace and beauty, they constitute an interest- 

 ing field of investigation, dressing the myriad shapes of the 

 woods with elaborate and fanciful decorations. Being very 

 retentive of life, and hardy, they resist extremely low tem- 

 peratures, many of them fructifying, as we have seen, in the 

 snow, and exhibiting their bright foliage when other plants 

 are sleeping or dead. The moss thus appears a silent wit- 

 ness, in the slumber of winter, that life has not been extin- 

 guished in the whole world of vegetation, or animation even 

 suspended in all, but that in some forms it is imperishable, 

 blooming with the freshness of evergreen youth through all 

 times and seasons. 



Another point of interest in this class, as of other crypto- 

 gamic plants, is their world-wide or cosmopolitan range. 

 Thus we have seen that of 394 described species of indi- 

 genous moss, 255 are common to Europe, while of the whole 

 number of species, including Phsenogamous plants, enume- 

 rated by Gray, 2C68, only 676 are common to Europe. 



