26 



BRITISH MOSSES. 



lie quietly in the basket until the next day. Now give yourself a couple of hours 

 for looking over those you have brought in. Have an old thick book ready, which 

 you do not mind spoiling, for drying your specimens, a couple of soup-plates full 

 of water, and a cloth. Your first step will be to arrange your tufts. Spread 

 plenty of newspapers on the table to catch the litter, of which there will be an 

 abundance, and on these group your mosses according to whatever classification 

 you please. Look at the position of the fruit, whether at the end of the branch 

 or the side, the form of the stem, whether branched or not, the situation of the 

 leaves, whether they are all round the stem or flat on each side of it ; in short, 

 whatever marks are given as the characteristics of an order. And it is best to be 

 content with this for the first two or three days ; as with trying to learn too much 

 at first, you will only get confused and bewildered. 



You will now carefully separate the little plants of which each tuft is composed ; 

 place these one by one in the first soup-plate to get a thorough washing, transfer 

 them to the second, keeping the same plate for the last bath, as you will find the 

 water get thick and full of bits of all kinds ; take each piece up separately, dab off 

 the dripping wet with the cloth, and lay it out between the leaves of your book. 

 Do not mind those getting wet, but take care that your mosses do not touch each 

 other. When a leaf is full, put three or four between it and the next you place 

 any moss upon ; and so continue until you have kejit as many as you like. Your 

 debris will consist of about half the quantity of moss you brought in, partly 

 because when you gathered it you fancied, as all collectors do, that every piece 

 you saw was finer than the last. But should you not be able to devote this time 

 to arrangement, you may spread your mosses out anywhere upon newspapers, and 

 let them remain so for a few hours ; then wrapping them up in the same papers as 

 tightly as you please, you may put them away in a drawer, or pack them up and 

 keep them in parcels for months ; and all they will need when at last you can sort 

 them is, first, a good sprinkling from a watering-pot, and, when the heap is 

 freshened, the baths in the soup-plates before advised, these baths being rather 

 longer than if the mosses were freshly gathered. 



The mosses may be left between the leaves for a month, and you will then 

 require some permanent arrangement of the specimens. They may be gummed 

 on paper and their names written underneath, and for this purpose gum-dragon 

 (or tragacanth), which leaves no shining mark when dry, is the best. Many 



