7 8 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



every crisis of human need, that he rose up with fresh 

 energy and hope to pursue his journey. In gratitude 

 for the good service it had done him, he brought home 

 some specimens of the moss, which, when submitted to 

 scientific men, was found to be identical with a species 

 that grows abundantly on our own woodland banks, 

 called Fissidens bryotdes, or the Lesser Fork-Moss. It 

 is a delicate little thing about a quarter of an inch in 

 height. Even to the eye that looks at it carelessly it 

 presents a beautiful appearance ; but the microscope 

 brings out fully its hidden charms, and reveals wonders 

 of structure before unknown. It has two sisters in this 

 country that have the same family features, but are 

 distinguished from it, among other peculiarities, by the 

 different positions of the seed-vessel ; in the one case 

 springing from the root, and in the other from the side 

 of the stem. They all grow on moist woodland banks, 

 or in the wet crevices of rocks ; and, owing to the 

 brightness and transparency of their foliage, whenever 

 they catch and imprison a stray sunbeam passing into 

 their dwelling-place, it lights them up with a golden 

 gleam like a cluster of topazes. 



Let us take this little moss with so interesting a 

 history as a type of its class, and proceed to examine 

 some of its details ; and we shall be no less struck than 

 Mungo Park was with its marvellous formation and 

 adaptation to its circumstances. The leaves are trans- 

 parent and are arranged in one plane on either side of 

 a pale pink stem. Their structure is very curious and 

 totally unlike that of any other moss. For about half 



