172 John Lewis Russell on the 
ART. XII. — MUSCI OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS. By Jonn Lewis 
RvssELL, A. A. S., Corresponding Member of the Boston Society of Natural 
History, &c., &c. Read December 4, 1844. 
"Wocvr» we seek for elegance amid the minuter wonders of 
the vegetable kingdom — for delicacy of structure; for in- 
stances of exquisite design, or for subjects of patient and 
instructive study ; to no department of scientific research may 
we turn, with greater hope of success, than to the Mosses. 
Their tiny roots; their curious leaves, rigid and like bristles in 
some, or broad or simple in others, or of the most complicated 
tissue of network in others, — in all, a great variety : and so fitly 
adapted to the circumstances of their places of growth ; their 
anomalous floral organs, but dimly shadowing forth the sexual 
lift in phenog plants ; the grace of their fruitstalks, 
(sete); the proportion, of their capsules; the peristome of a 
simplex or else of a complex character; the columella invested 
with spores (seeds) and operculum, to protect them from 
injury when immature ; the veil or calyptra surmounting the 
whole, and cast aside, when no longer needed, by a variety of 
ingenious devices; their mode of propagation ; utility to man; 
and indirect agency in the economy of the material world : 
superadded, the names of illustrious men who have made them 
their study, — these, and other circumstances beside; render 
an accurate knowledge of them an object of value and of con- 
stant interest. 2906 
The species mentioned in this paper, were determined from 
specimens, collected, as will be seen, in the vicinity of Boston ; 
many of which were presented to me by different friends, and 
others collected by myself. "Those about which I entertained 
doubts, were compared with authentic American, British i 
European specimens, in several herbaria, especially !n rich 
collections of B. D. Greene, to whose generosity and cope 
ration I am most particularly indebted. For their systemate 
arrangement, I have mainly followed the Synopsis of Gener? 
