To study the peristome and annulus, etc. ; if the operculum 

 still remains, remove it with forceps, or dissecting needle, carefully- 

 saving it on the slide; cut the capsule lengthwise with the scissors 

 and spread out each half on the slide, one outside up and the 

 other the inside up ; or the capsule can be first split and the pieces 

 of operculum removed afterwards. This prevents any loss of mi- 

 nute parts. If the spores obscure the parts, a minute's boiling 

 over the lamp will scatter them. The walls of the capsule will 

 often curl up so strongly as to make it necessary to split them 

 with the dissecting needles to cause them to lie flat. 



WHAT ARE MOSSES? 



By A. J. Grout and Marie L. Sanial. 



'HERE are at least three different classes of plants which 



popularly pass under the name of mosses, true mosses, He- 



patic^ or liverworts, and lichens. The lichens are gray, 

 yellow, brown and various other colors and shades, but are sel- 

 dom of true plant green ; then, too, they have no true stem and 

 leaves, but may consist of ascending or even pendant (in the case 

 of tree lichens, "hair moss") stem-like divisions or of a flattened 

 thalloid expansion either membranaceous or coriaceous in structure. 



There are two species of lichens to which the name moss has 

 been popularly and erroneously applied. The first, the hair 

 "moss" (Usnea), consists of strong, greenish -gray filaments and 

 resembles a small mane or wig. It clothes the branches of trees 

 and under shrubs in dark woods and is well known to every hunter 

 of squirrels, from its amazing similarity to the tail of a hiding 

 gray squirrel. 



The second is the reindeer " moss" (Cladonia rangijerina), 

 the great boon of the Laplander. It simulates a grayish crust- 

 like mass of much-branched, rootless and leafless hollow shrubs 

 in miniature, their height being seldom more than two inches. 



The liverworts are more likely to be mistaken for mosses, as 

 they belong to the same branch or subdivision {Bryophyta) of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and are very closely related. The foliose he- 

 patics have a stem and leaves, and when sterile some forms may 

 be mistaken for true mosses, even by one who has a considerable 

 knowledge of the plants, especially the alpine Gymnomtrium, 

 which has closely appressed but emarginate leaves and julaceous, 

 erect branches. 



