The Hair-cap Mosses, Polytrichum and Pogonatum, are the 

 tallest of the mosses and they have the most highly developed, 

 woody stems. Polytrichum commune^ whose hairy caps always 

 remind me of the one Robinson Crusoe made of goat-skin, and 

 Polytrichum Ohioense, are common in Bronx Park, and also in 

 old fields and grassy meadows elsewhere. Beneath the hairy 

 cap, the lid suggests a " tam-o-shanter, " and still better to 

 protect the spores, there is a tightly fitted drum-head, dove- 

 tailed on to the tips of the teeth. Its leaves, too, are specially 

 fitted for protection against dryness and freezing, as they roll 

 in their edges, making a tubular cavity, as the Rhododendrons do 

 with their leaves in winter and in drought. On freshly 

 broken soil along roadsides, the Goats-beard Moss grows, 

 Pogonatum tenue ; it, too, has a hairy cap, and is first cousin to 

 the Polytrichums, having a similar protection for its spores. It 

 always forms a bright-green felt of protonema, or fine green 

 threads, covering the ground with a delicate billiard-cloth, 

 until the plants are ready to grow. In this way it holds the 

 crumbling earthy banks together, and comes off in sheets when 

 gathered. To this family also, though wearing a plainer cap, 

 with a few short hairs, belongs the moss dedicated to the 

 Empress Catharine of Russia, Catharinea angustata, which is 

 also found commonly fruiting in winter at the base of trees, in 

 open places along roadsides and in woods. On old stone walls, 

 the bright-red rosettes of its antheridial heads, may be found 

 even in winter-time, and I have gathered them on the. rocks of 

 noth Street and Amsterdam Avenue. This moss also protects 

 its leaves from drying and frost, by curling them up, and has 

 gills on the upper side of the leaf along the vein, as do the 

 Hair-cap Mosses. But the capsules are perfectly smooth and 

 cylindric, instead of being angled, or cubical as in Polytrichum 

 commune. 



All over the rocks, where the water has settled and staid 

 during the winter, there will be seen in February and March 

 very brilliant, bright-green cushions of the "Horn-toothed 

 Moss," Ceratodon purpureus. Its pedicels as they grow upward 

 are a bright wine-red, and very numerous, and each becomes 

 tipped by a ribbed and bent capsule, which is also purple. 

 Around its mouth, may be seen with a lens, the curiously 

 divided teeth, thickened at the joints and resembling so much 

 the horns of an Antelope or Chamois, that they have given the 

 name of "horned-toothed" to the genus. This moss was 

 abundant last winter in vacant lots opposite St. Luke's 



