CHAPTER VI 
MOSSES AND PEAT 
THE mosses and liverworts form an isolated family 
utterly different both from the ferns and from the algae 
or fungi. 
One would think that the distinct leaf, stem, and 
reddish or brown root fibres of a moss could be com- 
pared with the leaves, stems, and roots of the flowering 
plants, but that is not the case. These leaves and root 
fibres have been produced by the exigencies of the 
situation, and have no relationship whatever to the cor- 
responding parts of a higher plant. 
The whole theory of a moss is quite different and 
special. It begins life as a branched green threadlike 
“protonema,” which closely resembles an alga, and on 
which the small buds appear which are to be its leafy 
stems. These last are intended to absorb the rain and 
dew, and especially the dust which falls upon them. 
One finds the neatest and most ingenious contrivances 
for catching, and especially for retaining this water. 
Sometimes every leaf-tip is continued into a fine 
twisting hair; sometimes the leaf itself resembles a deep 
spoon or asmall soup-ladle, and yet the arrangement of 
the leaves is so contrived and the shape so modified that 
they assist one another, not only to keep the water when 
it falls but to preserve it when they dry up. 
The leaves of the hair moss (Polytrichum, e.g.) not 
only individually roll or wrap themselves up lengthwise, 
but they also rise and press themselves against the stem, 
A dry blackish or brown withered tuft of any moss, 
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