38 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH MOSSES. 



duced, and one which will be attractive to those who regard 

 form more than brilliant colours. If proper soil were pre- 

 pared, we have no doubt that the spores of such handsome 

 Mosses as Splachnum rubrum and luteum, if imported carefully 

 from their northern home, might be made to vegetate and pro- 

 duce their lovely fruit. The subject is, at any rate, worth an 

 effort; and now that there are so many summer visitors to the 

 north of Europe, it may not be difficult to procure living 

 specimens. 



The great drawback to the cultivation of Mosses is the 

 appearance of the white mycelium of a parasitic Fungus 

 (Nectria muscivora) upon the patches, and possibly of one or 

 two other byssoid productions whose nature has not at present 

 been ascertained. The only mode of dealing with these, as 

 far as we know, is to remove them with a small brush as fast 

 as they are generated, or otherwise unsightly arid blotches are 

 formed which mar the general effect. 



A list of Mosses easy of cultivation in a cool frame, or 

 shaded shelf of a greenhouse, is given in Stark's ' History of 

 British Mosses/ p. 44. The pots which contain aquatic 

 species require to be placed in a pan of water. When the 

 pots are removed in summer into the open air they require 

 the protection, of a net, as birds are very apt to pull up the 

 Moss in search of insects. 



Mosses are not subject to many real parasites, though they 

 form a welcome matrix to many fungi. One or two species, 

 however, inhabit their sporangia or perigonia, while a minute 

 Fusisporium sometimes infests the spore-sac, destroying the 

 spores. 



