18 



BRITISH MOSSES. 



taken by many. In damp shady places the rocks often appear to be covered with 

 a dark-green fleece. 1 But if the hand presses this fleece, it is buried in its depths. 

 A tuft of it is like a miniature grove, a leafless, scaly cluster of stems often six 

 inches long, perfectly upright, and divided at the top into feather-like branches, 

 which bear the seed-vessels ; holding the tuft up to the light, the resemblance to 

 a wood is perfect : and it is upon the tree-like character of another moss, 2 closely 

 allied to this, but found in marshy places, that Humboldt bases the supposition 

 that there may be forests of tree mosses in some yet undiscovered region, as 

 there are known to be forests of tree ferns. 



Some day, even in this well-explored world, a traveller will slowly descend 

 a steep, and look over a parapet of rock upon a new vegetation in the hollow of 

 the valley below him. Deep, dark green are those plumy branches ; but now the 

 western sun breaks forth, and the many sides of the silken leaves give back strange 

 lustre. Soft, velvet-green is the shade, it must be still there ; and coming down 

 underneath the trees the very breath is hushed, for the silence is to be felt, there 

 is only heard the tinkling of the little rills which keep the moss-trees fresh. 

 Quietly stand those grey, silver- scaled trunks; the wind lifts the heavy plumes, 

 but makes no sound as it stirs them ; softness everywhere, for even that bright- 

 eyed creature who ran away, how downy his coat was ! And how the foot sinks, 

 and no fall is heard on the furry ground ! Look up, there are such leaf-patterns 

 as were never seen before, save in a morning's frost-work. And all this is green, 

 the very light is emerald, only a solitary flower, crimson or gold, is set here and 

 there, like Venus alone in the evening sky ; no blight rests upon the branches, nor 

 do the leaves fall, and the earth has upon it no dead. Is this anywhere among the 

 thousand islands in the unknown sea ? 



1 Isothecium alopneurum. 



3 Climacium (NecAera) dendroides. See " Aspects of Nature," vol. ii. 



