Mosses and Lichens at Home 



With the mosses nature first clothes naked sides of ditches and 

 clay banks and spaces between stubble of hay and corn. These 

 otherwise unsightly spots she covers and makes attractive with a 

 bright green carpet. Even the hard soil along the city pavement 

 or in the tiny city yard she covers with a velvety coat of young 

 moss plants, although they rarely develop further than this 

 velvet stage. 



" All green was vanished save of pine and yew, 

 That still displayed their melancholy hue ; 

 Save the green holly with its berries red, 

 And the green moss that o'er the gravel spread." 



Crabbe Tales of the Hall. 



The blackened embers of the picnic fire are hidden with Golden 

 Cord-mosses (Colour Plate III) and the roadsides in the woods 

 and the slopes to the lake are carpeted with sturdy Hairy-caps 

 (Colour Plate X). The crumbling roofs of deserted cottages 

 and the unused well-sweep and old oaken bucket are decorated 

 with soft tufts of green. Indeed the mosses are lodged in the 

 crevices of the stones which line the well itself and late in the 

 winter when all the world is asleep under its blanket of soft 

 white snow, these little mosses grow and flourish unaffected by 

 the cold above. 



Nature distributes the mosses lavishly in all humid climates, 

 regardless of altitude, cold or heat. They are found on trees 

 living or dead, on earth or on rock, in streams and on the land. 



" The orange stain, which is time's finger mark on the gray wall, and 

 the cups with scarlet edges spread for fairy banquets the soft green 

 beds into which our feet sink, and all the loveliness which we think of 

 when we think of mosses." Ruskin. 



Who has not loved the mossy banks and the little velvet 

 cushions which cling to the plaster of the old wall (Colour Plate 

 IV) or spring up in the crevices of the pavement, giving restful 

 spots of green to the dreary monotony of brick and stone? 

 Children play with mosses and lichens. Poets sing their charms. 

 Artists endeavour to reproduce their wonderful colours traced on 

 bark and rock. 



Aside from their artistic charm, mosses and lichens have 

 other charms for all who will pause awhile to study their habits, 

 and for all who will linger long enough to make out what the 

 plants are doing in their humble way. They have wonderful 



5 



