MOSS. 



17 



central fibre and its leaves accurately, and understand that 

 first. 



10. Pulling it to pieces, we find it composed of seven little 

 company-keeping fibres, each of which, by itself, 



appears as in Fig. 2, B : but as in this, its real 

 size, it is too small, not indeed for our respect, 

 but for our comprehension, we magnify it, Fig. 

 2, c, and thereupon perceive it to be indeed com- 

 posed of, a, the small fibrous root which sustains 

 the plant ; b, the leaf-surrounded stem which is 

 the actual being, and main creature, moss ; and, 

 c, the aspirant pillar, and cap, of its fructification. 



11. But there is one minor division yet. You 

 see I have drawn the central part of the moss 

 plant (6, Fig. 2,) half in outline and half in black ; 

 and that, similarly, in the upper group, which is 

 too small to show the real roots, the base of the 

 cluster is black. And you remember, I doubt 

 not, how often in gathering what most invited 

 gathering, of deep green, starry, perfectly soft 

 and living wood-moss, you found it fall asunder 

 in your hand into multitudes of separate threads, 

 each with its bright green crest, and long root 

 of blackness. 



That blackness at the root though only so 

 notable in this wood-moss and collateral species, 

 is indeed a general character of the mosses, with 

 rare exceptions. It is their funeral blackness ; 

 that, I perceive, is the way the moss leaves 

 die. They do not fall they do not visibly decay. 

 But they decay mvisibly, in continual secession, 

 beneath the ascending crest. They rise to form 

 that crest, all green and bright, and take the 

 light and air from those out of which they grew ; and those, 

 their ancestors, darken and die slowly, and at last become 

 a mass of mouldering ground. In fact, as I perceive farther, 

 their final duty is so to die. The main work of other leaves 

 is in their life, but these have to form the earth out of which 





a. 



\ t 



