CLASSIFICATION. 55 



It will be well however to devote a few pages to the im- 

 portant subject of Classification^ that a good groundwork 

 may be laid for prosecuting accurately the research neces- 

 sary with such minute objects. Thanks to those who have 

 preceded us, this, with a little care and patience, will not 

 prove such a formidable task as a beginner might imagine. 



We find that there are 39 genera and 300 species re- 

 corded in Hooker's ' llora' as natives of Britain, to wliich 

 many have since been added; and with such a host to arrange, 

 it is of much importance that the principles on which their 

 orders and tribes are classified, should be well understood 

 and accurately defined. Before the publication of the * His- 

 toria Muscorum,' by Dillenius, the celebrated British mus- 

 cologist, the Moss family in scientific works was associated 

 with a heterogeneous mass of Lichens, Algse, and Fungi, 

 and even in Ms book many of the two former are described. 

 This we are prepared to expect from his wide definition of 

 a Moss — "a. class of inferior plants, consisting of parts 

 simple or uniform, or endowed with diversity of parts." 

 The following six genera, comprising the true Mosses, 

 having " fructification visible in powdery heads,'^ were in- 

 stituted by him, viz. Mnium, Sj)hagnum, Fontinalis, Hyp- 

 num, Bryiim, Poli/trichun. Linnaeus followed him, adding 

 some new genera ; but his system was still very defective, as 



