MOSSES. 29 
the simplest structures anticipating and prefigur- 
ing the most highly organized and complicated. 
In no: tribe of plants is there so great a 
similarity between the different species as in the 
mosses. In them is strikingly displayed the 
grand characteristic feature of God’s work in 
creation—unity of type with variety of develop- 
ment. A simplicity and uniformity of structure 
runs throughout the entire family. The whole 
appearance, the general air, the manner of growth, 
is the same in all the species ; so much so, that it 
is perhaps easier to distinguish a species of moss 
than a species of any other plant. This remark- 
able similarity, concealing a no less remarkable 
diversity, has led to the popular belief that there 
is only one kind of moss ;—all the species, of 
which upwards of five hundred exist in this 
country alone, being confounded in one general 
appearance. Closely examined, however, by an 
educated eye, their exceeding variableness of 
form will at once become evident, some being 
slender hair-like plants ; some resembling minia- 
ture fir-trees, others cedars, and others crested 
feathers and ostrich plumes. In size they vary 
from a minute film of green scarcely visible to the 
naked eye, to wreathes and clusters several feet 
in length. Nor are their colours less variable, 
ranging from white, through every shade of 
