EXPLORATIONS 



for these solemn, twilight spaces. Cushion 

 mosses pad with their bluish-green velvet 

 hassocks here and there, and, sitting on 

 one of them that I might put all my wit 

 into seeing, I noted for the first time, 

 though growing all about me, in fact, a 

 moss that I had never seen before, the 

 mnium. 



Its delicate, translucent green leaves 

 are little like those of a moss at first 

 sight. One thinks it rather some rare 

 and delicate flowering plant of the wet 

 bog, now but thrusting up its delicate 

 leaves, to bloom later. I dare say the 

 mnium punctatum is a common bog moss. 

 Very likely I have trampled it ruthlessly 

 under foot before this in following some 

 more showy denizen of the deep woods; 

 but to find it thus, exploring a new swamp 

 for the first time, it gave me as great 



pleasure as I might have had in finding 

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