28 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
additions of matter to the growing point or the 
apex of parts already formed, they point to far 
higher orders of vegetation ; they are prefigura- 
tions of the flowering plants, epitomes of arche- 
types in trees and flowers. There is nothing in 
the appearance or structure of the lichens, fungi, 
or alge, to remind the popular mind of higher 
plants; they form, as it were, a strange micro- 
cosm of their own—a perfectly distinct and pecu- 
liar order of vegetable existence. But when we 
ascend a step higher and come to the mosses, we 
find for the first time the rudimental characters 
and distinctions of root, stem, branches, and leaves 
—we recognise an ideal exemplar of the flower- 
ing plants, all whose parts and organs are, as it 
were, sketched out, in anticipation, in these simple 
and tiny organisms. Through the small densely- 
cushioned, moss-like alpine flowers, they approxi- 
mate analogically to the phanerogamous plants in 
their leaves and habit of growth; and through the 
cone-like spikes of the club-mosses, they approxi- 
mate to the pine tribe in their fructification. 
From both these classes of highly organized 
plants, however, they are separated by wide and 
numerous intervening links. But still it is curious 
and interesting to find in them an exemplification 
of the universal teleology of nature—the humblest 
typical forms pointing to the grand archetypes, 
