20 MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS 



seem rather to prefer the bracing air of more 

 exposed situations. Plate II. fig. 14, the Dwarf 

 Swan-neck Moss ( Campy lopus pyriformis), is one 

 of a family which owe their common name to the 

 fact that the fruit-stalk, when moist, is consider- 

 ably bent, and is strongly suggestive of the 

 arching of a swan's neck ; it is almost certain to 

 be found on any moorland, where also some of 

 the Hair-mosses (Polytrichum) will as surely be 

 growing. These Hair-mosses are among the 

 most robust of all the tribe, and often attain to a 

 considerable size ; any one who has noticed with 

 some attention the ordinary growth on a wild 

 open heath will remember a dark green and 

 rather coarse kind of moss, with stiff, narrow, 

 somewhat bristle-like leaves, giving to the tuft, 

 when of any size, the appearance of a collection 

 of so many small bottle-brushes. The Purple 

 Fork-moss (Ceratodon purpureus), one of the 

 most cosmopolitan of our mosses, grows most 

 plentifully on peaty and sandy ground ; and in 

 April and May many a stretch of moorland 

 becomes tinged with red, owing to the presence 

 of innumerable spore-vessels of this prolific moss, 

 each on its own bright crimson stalk. The 

 Common Cord-moss (Funaria hygrometrica, Plate 

 II. fig. 18) is also partial to similar positions, and 

 especially to cinder-heaps, and to soil that has 

 been burned. It is easily known by its large and 

 somewhat filmy leaves, which grow in a bud-like 



