Mosses and Lichens 



HEPATICS 



If the plants are green, growing flat and ribbon-like or as 

 prostrate stems with paired, veinless leaves and with fruits 

 umbrella-like or cups which do not open by lids but split 

 irregularly into symmetrical valves in order to permit their 

 spores to escape, one may know them to be hepatics. 



The beauty which mosses lend to the surfaces upon which 

 they live is pretty generally conceded. One has but to recall the 

 frequent reference which our poets make to them to feel that 

 they have always appealed to the poetic eye. 



Mnium ajfine. Moss. 



" On our other side is the straight-up rock ; 



And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it, 

 By boulder-stones where lichens mock 



The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit 

 Their teeth to the polished block. 



These early November hours, 



That crimson the creeper's leaf across 

 Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt, 



O'er a shield else gold from rim to base, 

 And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped 



Elf -needled mat of moss." 



Browning By the Fireside. 



Ruskin says: "To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is 

 entrusted the weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills." 



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