MOSSES 25 



leaves, and the Pale-leaved Thread-moss (Bryum 

 pallens, fig. 17), with its hright crimson stem 

 and somewhat large leaves, which are frequently 

 tinted with the same hright colour, are further 

 instances of clay-dwellers. 



As a rule mosses do not like the sea, though 

 here, as usual, Nature draws no hard-and-fast line, 

 for some few may he occasionally met with grow- 

 ing comparatively close to the shore, and even on 

 the sandhills flanking it. For instance, the Sea- 

 side Sessile Grimmia (Grimmia maritima, Plate 

 II. fig. 11) is a very beautiful little moss that 

 makes its home on rocks close to the sea. I 

 gathered the plant from which my drawing was 

 made in the splash of a small stream which 

 trickles down the face of the rocks in one of 

 the coves at Wooda Bay, in Devonshire, and 

 here it was flourishing within a comparatively 

 few yards of high-water mark, doubtless exposed 

 to the spray as the waves break upon the cliffs. 



It must not be supposed that the above slight 

 sketch forms by any means an exhaustive 

 enumeration of the homes of these plants ; for, 

 like the grass, the mosses may well say, " Lo ! 

 I come creeping, creeping everywhere." I have 

 only attempted to give a rough idea of the 

 positions or localities in which we may gener- 

 ally expect to find the tribe more or less plenti- 

 fully represented. With the rarer species local 

 considerations, such as the geological formation 



