MOSSES. 39 
Several species of mosses are furnished with 
pseudopodia, which consist of powdery or granu- 
lated heads terminating an elongated and almost 
leafless portion of the stem. These. organs are 
usually developed only in unfavourable circum- 
stances, being formed at the expense of the fruit, 
which is then abortive. They appear to be simply 
a mass of naked seed, without the ordinary pro- 
tection and mechanism of an enveloping seed-vessel, 
and as such, afford a remarkable illustration of the 
simplicity of the means by which nature, when 
placed ata disadvantage, effects. her vital purposes. 
Several mosses, however, possess the power of 
maintaining and spreading themselves without 
the aid of any of these organs of fructification ; 
thus showing that the conditions essential to the 
act of reproduction in the higher ranks of creation 
may be gradually dispensed with as we descend 
the scale, until they are at length altogether 
superseded by the simplest process when we reach 
the extreme limits either of the animal or veget- 
ablekingdom. There is one remarkable moss, the 
male plant of which exists only in Europe, so far 
as can be ascertained, and the female only in 
America, and yet they propagate themselves by 
a process of proliferous growth or budding with as 
much facility as though they grew side by side in 
the same crevice of rock. Almost all the mosses, 
