218 Flowerless Plants. 



FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 



Although the Cellular or Cryptogamous plants do not 

 come directly within the scope of this work, yet they form too 

 large and important a class to be entirely unnoticed. Some of 

 them, though unadorned with the bright hues and delicate 

 proportions which have made a love for flowers so universal 

 are yet both interesting and useful, and some of the phe- 

 nomena connected with their organization are very curious. 

 We propose to devote an occasional brief article to their 

 history. The Mosses, perhaps the most abundant and widely 

 diffused of the Cryptogamia, are found in all parts of the 

 world in which the atmosphere is moist, but they are much 

 more numerous in temperate climates, than between the tropics. 

 In newly found countries, they are among the first vegetables 

 which clothe the soil ; and they are the last to disappear when 

 the atmosphere ceases to be capable of nourishing vegetation. 

 The first green crust upon the cinders with which the surface 

 of Ascension Island was covered, consisted of minute mosses. 

 This tribe forms more than a fourth of the whole vegetation 

 of Melville Island, one of the most northerly spots in which 

 any plants have been observed ; and the black and lifeless soil 

 of New South Shetland, one of the islands nearest the South 

 Pole, is covered with specks of mosses, struggling for exis- 

 tence. Besides their power of resisting extremes of tempera- 

 ture, Mosses exhibit a remarkable tenacity of life, when their 

 growth is checked by the absence of moisture ; so that their 

 life may often be restored, even after being dried for years. 

 Hence, they offer abundant sources of interest to the observer 

 of Nature, at a season when vegetation of other kinds is almost 

 entirely checked. For it is most curious to observe how gay 

 these little mosses are, on every wall during the winter months, 

 and in the early spring, seeming like the only things which 

 enjoy the clouds and storms of the season. They choose the 

 most exposed situations, spread out their leaves, and push up 

 their delicate urns amid rain, frost and snow ; and yet there is 

 nothing in their simple and tender structure from which we 



