GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 47 



would desire to speak at present, as of their geograjildcal 

 distribution throughout our own and other lands. As we 

 shall in the body of the work have occasion to refer to the 

 range of the localities of those that are natives of Britain, we 

 shall in the remainder of this chapter confine ourselves to a 

 few observations on the dissemination of this interesting 

 family in the other quarters of the globe. 



Meyen, in his 'Botanical Geography/ says that "the 

 wide range of the Cryptogamia, particularly of lichens and 

 mosses, is sufficiently known ; indeed many of them seem to 

 be distributed uninterruptedly from one end of the earth to 

 another." 



TVliile there is thus scarcely any portion of the earth 

 destitute of Mosses, it is, as we have already observed, in 

 the temperate and colder zones where they most abound. 



Those who have ascended some of our loftier Scotch 

 mountains must have observed the immense fields of Tricho- 

 stomuni lanuginosum matting the ground, looking stiM more 

 grey and sombre than is their wont from the snow-wreaths 

 by which they are frequently accompanied even at mid- 

 summer. An excess of heat seems unfavourable to the 

 growth of Mosses, for under the equator we find but very 

 few species, the luxuriant herbage and " bush" entirely oc- 



