Decembek 1, 1891.] 



KNO^A^LEDGE. 



221 



\^ AN ILLUSTRATED "^i^ 



MAGAZINE 



SIMPLY WORDED- 



OF SCIENCE 



-EXACTLY DESCRIBED 



LONDON: DKCEMBER 1, 1891. 



CONTENTS. 



Bv the Rt. Hon. Lord .Ti'stioe Fry, 



Bv C'akon Isaac Taylob, 



Bv 



British Mosses 



F.R.S,, F.S.A., Ar. 

 A Gossip on Ghost-Names 



M.A,, LL )).. ii- 



Some Pr-actical Applications of Electricity. — III 



J. J. Stewart . 



On Human Pediculi. — I. By E. A. Butlek 



Letters :— A. W. Gordon ; Frances Power Cobbe ; Chahle,s 



F. Hart; W.M 



Dark Structures in the IVIill<y Way. By A. C. Ranyard 



Notices of Books... 



Explosions on Petroleum Vessels. By Richard Beynox, 



F.R.a.S 



Sea-Urchins. By R. Lydekeer, B.A. Cuntab 



The Face of the Sky for December. By Hekbert 



Sadler, F.R.A.S 



Chess Column. By 0. D. Locock, B.A.Oxon 



228 

 230 

 232 



BRITISH MOSSES.* 



By the Et. Hon. Lord Justice Fry, F.R.S. , F.S.A.,F.L.S. 



LORD BACON thought that a Moss was " but a 

 rudiment between putrefaction and a herb." 

 Mr. Ruskin thought, and perhaps thinks (he is at 

 war, he tells us, with the botanists), " that tlie 

 pineapple is really a Moss." People popularly 

 talk of Club- Mosses and Stag-Mosses. Now all these 

 usages of the word may be useful to us when we begin to 

 think about Mosses, if we will make the right use of them, 

 /.I'., if we will absolutely reverse them. A Moss 

 is not a rudiment between a putrefaction and a 

 herb, but a delicately, exquisitely organized 

 plant. No possible stretch of the conception of 

 a Moss can make it include a pineapple any 

 more than an elephant ; and the stag and club- 

 Mosses of popular speech belong to a group of 

 plants quite different from the Mosses, and of a 

 far higher organization. 



What then is a Moss'? 'i'his is a cpiestion 

 not to be hastily answered, and will 1 think be 

 best answered at the end and not at the 



beginning of this paper. If you are working deductively, 

 your definitions may come at the beginning; but if by 

 patient investigation into natural facts, beware of starting 

 with definitions — they ought to be the ripest fruit of your 

 longest labour. 



Vegetable productions are commonly divided into two 

 great groups : those which possess obvious blossoms, or 

 Phanerogams, and those which possess no obvious blossoms, 

 or Cryptogams. The Cryptogams are again divided into 

 two great groups — those whose structure is built up of cells 

 without regularly formed vessels, such as sea weeds, fungi 

 and lichens, the cellular Crj-ptogams; and those which, like 

 the ferns and the club-Mosses, possess, in addition to cells, 

 regularly formed vessels ; these are known as Vascular, 

 Cryptogams. 



This brief explanation will be enough to enable the 

 reader to learn from the following table, which is arranged 

 in an ascending rank, something as to the position of the 

 Mosses in the vegetable kingdom, and the principal gi'oups 

 into which they may be divided : — 



TABLE 



Series. 



A. 



Vascular 



Cryptogams 



rPleurocarpae 

 I Acrocarpse 



( Stegocarpse 

 \ CleistocariJEe 



Hypnnm 



PolytricUiun 



Pliascum 



muBcnese Unomaleffi * ^cuizocan^se Ana™a 



J .a.u^^iini.ic(c -^ Holocari>ae Archidjum 



', ii. Spliagnacese 



I "•• *lei»"ceffi. I jiarchantiacea; 



Algffi, &c. [ 



From this table it will be gathered that the Mosses, 

 using that word in its wide signification, stand at the head 

 of the cellular cryptogams, and that above them are the 

 vascular cryptogams, of which, as I have already said, the 

 ferns are one of the best-known groups. From these 

 vascular cryptogams the Mosses are, however, separated 

 by a distance which Goebel has described as a chasm " the 

 widest with which we are acquainted in the whole vegetable 

 kingdom." Perhaps, however, at some future time it may 

 be found that even over this gulf Nature has thrown some 

 slender bridge. 



From the table it will be further seen that the larger 

 group of the Muscineie divides itself into three principal 

 smaller groups : the Hepaticea^ or liverworts, the Sphag- 

 nacese or turf Mosses, and the Musci or true Mosses — Urn- 

 Mosses, as they have been called, from the form of their 

 capsule. These three divisions the Germans conveniently 

 name as Leber-Moose, Torf-Moose, and Laub-Moose. 



Now I wdl ask the reader to look at the column under 

 the word " Series." The PleurocarpiB or Pleurocarpous 

 Mosses are those which carry their capsules on stalks pro- 

 ceeding from the sides of the axis of growth ; the 

 Acrocarpje or Acrocarpous Mosses are those which bear 

 these capsules on the top of their axis of growtli. This 



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