CHAPTER I 



MOSSES 



A S I am not writing a scientific treatise, I do 

 *^*- not propose to begin in the orthodox fashion 

 by attempting to give a definition of a moss, 

 seeing that I have no desire to disgust my readers 

 on the very threshold of the subject, by placing 

 before them a number of dry, technical details 

 which would, after all, be of little real service ; 

 it will be time enough, when we have made some 

 practical acquaintance with the plants themselves, 

 to seek for a scientific description of them. 

 Fortunately, mosses are, as a rule, easily recog- 

 nised, and a comparatively short acquaintance 

 with them enables one, almost intuitively, to 

 distinguish them, even in the field, from other 

 plants ; indeed, the only members of the botanical 

 world with which there is any danger of their 

 being confused are some of that small tribe, as 

 to which I shall have more to say hereafter the 

 liverworts. But even here it is only at first that 

 any real difficulty is likely to arise, and after 

 a little practice it soon becomes easy to tell at a 

 glance whether any particular plant is a moss or 

 a liverwort ; while under the microscope, or with 



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