How to Know the Lichens and Mosse 



Whittier in " The Bridal of Pennacook," to the query of "Why 

 turns the bride's fond eye on him, in whose cold look is naught 

 beside the triumph of a sullen pride ?" replies: 



" Ask why the graceful grape entwines 

 The rough oak with her arm of vines ; 

 And why the gray rock's rugged cheek 

 The soft lips of the mosses seek : 

 Why with wise instinct, Nature seems 

 To harmonise her wide extremes, 

 Linking the stronger with the weak, 

 The haughty with the soft and meek ! " 



Shakespeare calls the mosses "idle": 



" It is dross, usurping ivy, brier, 

 or idle moss." 



Comedy of Errors, Act II, Sc. a. 



Scientists of to-day tell us that the rock-loving mosses and 

 lichens are at work upon the "everlasting hills" to convert them 

 into new soil ; that the saprophytic mosses on dead logs in the 

 forest are at work returning to Mother Earth the materials which 

 her tree-children took from her many years ago. They tell us 

 that bog-mosses are reclaiming the marshes for higher plants, 

 and that the water-loving mosses are receiving from the brooks 

 lime-solutions which were brought up from depths below, and 

 are laying them down in places where they are useful to man. 

 As our knowledge of their practical value increases we shall not 

 lose sight of their beauty, a new wonder will be added to our 

 knowledge and many new interests to our trips "among the 

 nodding ferns and mosses cool." 



Their association with aged castles and trees is so familiar to 

 everyone that the poet has but to mention mosses and lichens to 

 picture lonely places and peaceful decay. "Moss-muffled for- 

 ests dim" and "the rocks where the brown lichen whitens " 

 give to us a feeling of loneliness, while the picture of Oliver 



" A wretched, ragged man o'ergrown with hair " 



is complete when Orlando finds him sleeping on his back 

 " under an oak, whose boughs are mossed with age." 



As You Like It. Act. IV, Sc. 3. 



Wordsworth tells us: 



' ' There is a thorn it looks so old, 

 In truth, you'll find it hard to say 



II 



