MOSSES 7 



the help of an ordinary magnifying-glass, the 

 differences of form and structure are at once 

 apparent. It seems hardly necessary to mention 

 that the beautiful little "Cup-moss," so frequently 

 to he seen in the country, growing upon walls 

 or on decaying tree-stumps, is not a moss at all, 

 hut a lichen, and thus occupies a lower position 

 still in the scale of plant-life ; while the so-called 

 " Club-mosses " and " Stag's-horn-mosses " belong 

 to a more highly organised tribe, and again are 

 not true mosses. With the uninitiated the word 

 "moss" seems to be a kind of general term, 

 which is applied to all the smaller vegetable 

 growths, and this, no doubt, accounts for the fact 

 that the name is so frequently used inaccurately. 



Number of Species. But although most people 

 know a moss when they see one, very few have 

 any conception of the large number of different 

 kinds that are to be met with in Nature. It is 

 of course evident, even on the most superficial 

 survey, that mosses are not all alike, for there 

 are certain broad differences in their general 

 appearance that at once mark some out as quite 

 distinct from others ; nevertheless, these external 

 differences would never lead us to suppose that, 

 in Britain alone, more than six hundred kinds 

 have taken up their abode, to say nothing of many 

 others which inhabit foreign countries but do not 

 grow in these islands. Again, it is by no means 

 an uncommon thing to find a plant which, though 



