10 MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS 



we should be most likely to meet with the more 

 familiar figures of the moss world, and incidentally 

 we shall obtain an idea of the various forms which 

 these tiny plants assume. 



It almost goes without saying that mosses are, 

 as a rule, moisture-loving plants; indeed, we 

 naturally associate them with the trickle of water 

 and with damp, shady places, for amid such 

 surroundings they generally live and flourish as 

 though it were a pleasure to be alive. Thus it is 

 that Woods offer a home to many of the most 

 beautiful kinds, and here we may find them 

 covering the ground with a soft, green carpet, 

 refreshing to the eye, and soft to the tread. And 

 if by chance we light upon some dingle, screened 

 from the blaze of the sun by the leafy canopy 

 of the over-arching trees and shrubs, and where 

 too 



the silver brook 



From its full laver pours the white cascade, 

 And, babbling low amid the tangled woods, 

 Slips down the moss-grown stones with endless laughter, 1 



not only the ground by the water-side, but the 

 rocks and stones, the dead branches lying about, 

 and the trunks of the trees themselves, will 

 probably be more or less clothed with a delicate 

 green mantle, formed of an almost infinite number 

 of the minute leaves of these diminutive plants ; 

 while the nooks and crannies in the banks, which 



1 Longfellow. 



