XXVII. 



THE FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 



As a tribe of vegetable curiosities, pleasantly asso- 

 ciated with cool grots, damp shady woods, rocks rising 

 in the midst of the forest, with the edges of fountains, 

 the roofs of old houses, and the trunks and decayed 

 branches of trees, may be named the flowerless plants. 

 Few persons know the extent of their advantages in 

 the economy of vegetation ; still less are they aware 

 how greatly they contribute to the beauty of some of 

 the most beautiful places in nature, affording tints for 

 the delicate shading of many a native landscape, and 

 an embossment for the display of some of the fairest 

 flowers of the field. The violet and the anemone, that 

 peep out upon us in the opening of spring, have a 

 livelier glow and animation when imbosomed in their 

 green beds of mosses, and the arethusa blushes more 

 beautifully by the side of the stream, when over- 

 shadowed by the broad pennons of the umbrageous 

 fern. The old tree with its mosses wears a look of 

 freshness in its decay, the bald rock loses its baldness, 

 with its crown of lichens and ferns, and every barren 

 spot, in the pastures or by the way-side, is enlivened 

 and variegated by the carpet of flowerless plants, that 



