MOSSES 35 



another member of that interesting little group 

 of plants of which mention has already been made 

 (p. 24) as being distinguished by their specially 

 flat growth, and by the curious double thickness 

 of a portion of the leaf. In this particular plant 

 one of the features by which it is recognised 

 is the presence of these tiny flowers in the axils 

 of many of the leaves, as shown in my drawing. 

 Pig. 5 represents a small piece of one of the 

 commonest of our Feather-mosses, the Prolonged 

 Feather-moss (Eurhynchium prcelongum\ which 

 grows creeping on the soil, or on tree-stumps 

 in the shade of the hedgerow, and in other like 

 situations, often sending out long, pale green, 

 feathery fronds, which make their way into the 

 cracks and crannies where they can get screened 

 from the sunlight, clinging so tenaciously to the 

 ground, by means of their tiny rootlets, that it 

 is difficult to disentangle a perfect specimen. 

 In this case three flowers are shown, each under 

 cover of a leaf. 



Now let us, with the help of a dissecting-glass 

 and a pair of dissecting-needles, carefully cut 

 away the leaves from some of these bud-like 

 bodies. In the great majority of cases we shall 

 be struck by the fact that these leaves are larger, 

 and often much larger than the ordinary leaves 

 of the plant, and, moreover, that they differ very 

 considerably from them in form. How great this 

 difference may be, will be readily understood by 



