Mossos. 



MOSSES. 



ROM LIITDLET. 



Still lower in the scale of creation than Ferns, are Mosses. 

 Up to the present moment, a microscope has rarely been neces- 

 sary in our studies; whenever I have recommended you to 

 employ it, the subject would usually have admitted of your dis- 

 pensing with its aid, if you pleased. But from henceforth it 

 must be constantly in your hand, and every observation must 

 be made with it. You will, however, find abundance of most 

 curious and interesting results, to indemnify you for the trouble 

 it will give you. 



Mosses are among the smallest of plants with true leaves ; 

 they are often so minute that the whole specimen, leaves, 

 stem, fruit and all, would escape the eye, if they did not grow 

 in patches ; and they never, in the largest kinds, exceed the 

 height of a few inches. Nevertheless, they are organized in a 

 manner far more complete than Ferns, although they are desti- 

 tute of air vessels and breathing pores. • Mosses are usually 

 the first plants that show themselves on rocks, or walls, or bar- 

 ren places, where no other vegetation can establish itself; pro- 

 vided the air is damp, they will flourish there, and in time, lay 

 the foundation of a bed of vegetable mould, in which the roots 

 of grasses, and other stronger plants, may find support, till they 

 in their turn have decayed and prepared the way for shrubs 

 and trees. This is the usual order observed by nature in con- 

 verting the face of rocks into vegetable mould ; and thus you 

 see Mosses have to perform the office of pioneers to larger 

 plants, an office for which one would have thought their Lilli- 

 putian size would hardly have qualified them. 



Mosses are formed upon precisely the same plan as flowering 

 plants, as far as the arrangement of their organs of vegetation. 

 They have in all cases a stem, or axis, however minute, round 

 which the leaves are disposed with the greatest symmetry : 

 they have the parts which answer to seeds, enclosed in a case ; 

 and this case is elevated on a stalk, which arises from among 

 the leaves. But beyond this, analogy ceases : in all other 



