" But in quaintness of structure, the lichens outvie 

 All else that in nature rejoices the eye. — 

 All sober in color, but varied in form, 

 From the Graphis, whose tracings the tree-trunks adorn, 

 As with Arabic writing, or outlines of maps, 

 To the ugly rock-tripe that on yonder cliff flaps. 

 From old branches the pendent gray (Jsnea sways, 

 While upon them the graceful Parmelia displays 

 Its parterres with curved paths, which the pixies might tread, 

 And gay little seed-beds, brown, orange, and red. 

 And here, on this knoll, which the wind has swept clean, 

 The Cladonia s whimsical structures are seen. 

 One resembles a balconied minaret tall, 

 Or a ruined old castle, just ready to fall; 

 And another seems most, with its flame-colored tip, 

 Like a beacon-fire such as the old Normans lit. 

 And those that like delicate corals appear 

 Are the favorite food of the arctic reindeer." 



But even after the name is restricted to its scientific sense, 

 the mosses include two tribes of closely allied plants, the true 

 mosses and the liverworts, or scale-mosses. Few students of 

 botany even, know any of the liverworts by name or by sight, 

 though descriptions and illustrations of them may be found in 

 two editions of Gray's Manual, and they grow commonly in 

 this vicinity in similar localities to those where the true mosses 

 grow. Such, for instance, is the showy Marchantia, which has 

 been found in grassy, shady places in old gardens, and under 

 bushes along streams in several places in the boroughs of the 

 Bronx and Richmond, and thrives in my garden in Bedford 

 Park. 



Even in the borough of Manhattan, it is not unusual to those 

 who know them, to see mosses growing in the crevices of the 

 city pavements, at the base of old walls, and in the cracks 

 where the mortar is crumbling. The stair-cases of Morning- 

 side Park, yielded several species last spring, and the rocks in 

 West noth street, five or six others, beside a species of fern. In 

 Bronx Park over seventy species have been collected and listed 

 for the Herbarium of the Museum, and it is probable that a like 

 number could be found in Van Courtland and Pelham Parks, 

 or in Prospect Park, if they were as carefully searched and the 

 permission could be obtained to do so. In the Borough of 

 Richmond, there is even a still greater variety, and on the 

 Palisades above Fort Lee one of the largest local collections 

 ever made in this region was gathered by C. F. Austin, and is 

 now in the possession of the Herbarium of Columbia University. 



LIBRARY 



THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN 

 BRONX. NEW YORK 10458 



