50 WOHCRSTEK COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1809. 



tire very tierce, so everything was burned, even the soil. 

 The ground was left in such a barren condition that plants 

 have been very slow in taking possession again. But the tirst 

 fall I noticed broad tracts form, six and ten feet wide, of thin 

 moss growth, especially Funaria^ its tangle of silky stems the 

 most luxuriant I had ever seen. Another thing I noticed here 

 was the growth of Marchantia-jwlymorpha in the i)urnt field. 

 It was not the first time I had found it in association with ashes 

 and charcoal, — once in the cellar of a burned house, and several 

 times forming lonely circles around a deserted camp-fire in the 

 woods. 



It always interests me to find a plant or animal occupying a 

 peculiar and circumscribed habitat. It seems as if it had such 

 a special work to do in nature's economy. So I was interested 

 in Mrs. Button's account of the Sj)Iachnu7n. She writes: — " In 

 mountain districts, where cattle pass to and fro from the 

 meadows and Alps, one notices on their halting -grounds and 

 along their tracks moss of a conspicuous green grovving on 

 circumscribed spots. On closer examination we find we have 

 here an example of that remarkable group the Spladinmn, and 

 that it has selected the cow dung to be the nutrient element 

 substratum. Each group of emerald green /^plachiium is strictly 

 limited to the area of a lump of dung, no trace of it is seen 

 elsewhere, all the stages of development of this moss following 

 each other in the same substratum. First of all, the lumps of 

 dirt, which are kept moist by rain or standing water, are en- 

 veloped in a web of Protonema, and their surface acquire 

 thereby a characteristic greenish lustre. Later, hundreds of 

 little green stems, thickly clothed with leaves, emerge, and the 

 spore cases, which resemble tiny antique jars, and are amongst 

 the prettiest exhibited in the world of mosses, become visil)lc 

 as well." Other species of Splachnum vary their habitat so 

 far as to occupy the excrement of the chamois, the reindeer, 

 birds of prey. One specimen was found in the foot of an old 

 stocking, another in the skull of a musk ox. Still another in 

 the skeleton of a hedgehog. 



Each season has its own peculiar charm and its own special 



