2 BRITISH MOSSES. 



was filled with vegetable life. One family of plants was created, by their low 

 organization fitted to exist anywhere, by their varied food to find nourishment out 

 of every possible substance, by their minute, invisible seeds to gain entrance into 

 the tiniest crevice, and, by their wonderful formation and exquisite beauty, to bear 

 witness to His power and skill and love throughout all lands. This family 

 of julants was in former days called " cryptogamic," or " hidden fruited," it is 

 now known as the " cellular," and the " acotyledonous." Why it has these 

 names it is not now our purpose to inquire ; but, to know of what plants it consists, 

 let us call to mind those shade-lovers, like forest-spirits, transformed but not 

 stilled, — the ferns ; the strange, mysterious children of darkness and decay, coming 

 out in their scarlet, and orange, and brown, and looking at us in their uncanny 

 fashion, witnesses that death is the gate of life not to be numbered for multitude, — 

 the fungi ; the waving crimson banners and purple plumes down in the depths of 

 the rock-pools, whose name but to mention seems to bring the fresh wind into 

 our faces, and the dash of the waves to our ears, — the sea-weeds ; the orange 

 stain, which is time's finger-mark on the grey wall, and the cups with scarlet 

 edges spread for fairy banquets, — the lichens ; the soft green beds into which our 

 feet sink, and all the loveliness which we think of when we think of — mosses. And 

 of mosses, in their homes, their aspects, their structure, their uses, we now 

 intend to discourse. 



But we pause. At the very idea of studying mosses a clamour of objections 

 arises, as loud and as confusing as the chatter of the black stones when the 

 princess went toiling up the hill after the golden water. Mosses ! Mosses upon the 

 wall ! there can surely be little to say of them. Mosses ! there must be so much 

 to say of them that it is hardly possible to learn it. There is no use in a book 

 about what we have no hope of understanding. Mosses ! they can be understood, 

 we suppose, but they are so extremely difficult, and they require you to put your 

 eyes out in looking through a microscope; and Mr. Jones, the naturalist, pokes 

 into the hedge until he finds out a little atom you can hardly see, and he says 

 triumphantly, " It is Phascum Subulatum !" and we have no taste for hard names, 

 and we never heard a moss called by a plain one. Thank you, we do not wish to 

 know anything about mosses. 



Certainly, if we listen to the black stones, we shall never do anything worth 

 the name of doivg ; so we may as well stuff our ears with cotton and push bravely 



