20 PICTURE OF ORGANIZED NATURE. 



According to such observations, their extension is 

 represented on the Picture. 



5. The Liverworts (Hepatica), as to their structure, 

 are between the lichens and mosses ; some of them, 

 for instance the star-lip, having 1 a closer affinity to the 

 mosses; others, as the marsh-liverworts, to the lichens. 

 They chiefly vegetate in the beginning of spring and 

 the latter part of autumn. Their native country, there- 

 fore, lies between that of the lichens and the mosses. 



6. The Mosses do not penetrate so far into the 

 snow-line as the lichens. They are closer allied to 

 the other plants with regard to their structure, but, 

 according to general observations, very plentiful in 

 those parts where flower-bearing plants seldom occur. 

 In the Torrid Zone, they vegetate only in marshy 

 damp spots, growing chiefly in the autumn and 

 spring: accordingly, their native country is un- 

 doubtedly in the neighbourhood of the snow-line. 



7. Between the mosses and ferns is the genus of 

 Club-Moss (Lycopodium) ; resembling the mosses 

 with regard to their growth, but vegetating like the 

 ferns, particularly during the summer ; bearing two 

 valved capsules, in spikes ; and, even in that view, ap- 

 proaching those ferns whose capsules are in the 

 spikes; as, for instance, the genus of Flowering-Fern 

 (Osmunda L.). 



