56 HISTORY OP BRITISH MOSSES. 



he in eluded among Mosses the Lycopodiim, now represent- 

 ing a distinct natural family more allied to the Ferns, and 

 Porella, a foreign genus allied to Jimfjermannia. He fol- 

 lowed Dillenius in mistaking the capsule for the anther or 

 male flower, and also in describing erroneously many of the 

 genera. As the great naturalist however scarcely ever used 

 a lens — of which in some of his works he seems to make a 

 boast — we need not be surprised to find grievous inaccu- 

 racies in his descriptions of the Cryptogamia. We shall 

 see, as we proceed, that little can be done in this department 

 of botany without the aid of a good lens, or, if deep re- 

 search is aimed at, a powerful microscope. 



Saussure, Haller, and other continental botanists, had 

 however been studying the characters of the fruit and peri- 

 stome of Mosses, and in due time Hedwig gave to the world, 

 among other interesting contributions to muscology, his 

 ' Groundwork (Fundamentum) of the Natural History of 

 Prondose Mosses,' in which the modifications of form in 

 the peristome hold an important place. He followed the 

 principles laid down by Linnaeus in his ' Philosophia Eo- 

 tanica," that " the characters must all be derived from the 

 number, form, proportion, and situation of the whole of 

 the organs of fructification." 



Improving on Micheli's discovery of what are regarded 



