INTRO D UCTION. 



17 



little fibres, dusted by a lichen with a grey powder, and there are great mats of 

 feather-moss, among which now and then appear clusters of stars. Cushions of 

 velvet, tufts of bright silvery leaves, embroideries neither like lace nor window 

 frost, yet reminding us of both ; filmy veils, cut and minced and gashed as it were 

 every way, yet every cut and gash forming part of a quaintly intricate device, 

 some mosses armed with a cheveux-de-frise of stiff, bayonet-like leaves, and 

 drawing themselves together into compact clumps, others soft and furry ; grey and 

 russet, emerald and scarlet, purple and orange, so has the Beautifier of the earth 

 made them. Strangely, also ; for the forms of these humble things are in many 

 cases those of the grandest and most gorgeous of all natural objects. The star links 

 together the heavens above our heads and the earth beneath our feet ; and the 

 Maker telleth the number of the stars, of the green stars of the earth, as of the 

 golden stars of the sky. 



" In His hand arc all the corners of the earth ;" a corner remote enough is the 

 top of a bank in a moorland district. This is sometimes covered with a star-moss, 1 

 whose leaves, dark green and rigid, thickly beset the stem ; from the middle 

 rises the fruit-stalk, orange-coloured, deepening near the top to brown, and 

 wearing a conical cap covered with silky yellow hair ; the golden hair and orange 

 stalks and green leaves shining- beneath tho blue sky. This moss is an aloe in 

 miniature ; and on many of the stems, in the centre of the circlet of leaves, is a 

 crimson cup, as perfectly like a cactus-blossom. A sage-green moss, 2 common on 

 rocks, has at the end of every branchlet its fruit, like a coral bead. The fruit of 

 another is at once described by its name, " Apple-moss." 3 One family of star- 

 mosses is appropriately designated the " Swan-necked/' 4 so lovely is the curve of 

 its fruit-stalk ; another might be named the " Crane's-billed." 5 But, strangest of 

 all, to an obscure moss 6 has been given the form of that which is at once the state- 

 liest and the loveliest of all green things, the date palm tree. 



The coral-beaded one is the only candelabra-moss having any special beauty. 

 Feather-mosses have less variety of form, but more of colour, though even here is 

 the same quaint imitation in the shape of the spruce fir tree. 7 The tree form is 



1 Polytrichum piliferum. 2 Hedwigia ciliata. 3 Bartrammia pomiformis. 



* Mnium. 5 Atrichum. 6 Mnium undvlatum. 7 Hypnum triquetrum. 



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