33 



little attention that has been bestowed on 

 our cryptogatnous plants, no work has yet 

 been published embracing them all in a ge- 

 neral view. The great diversity of our cli- 

 mate, presenting the extremes of heat and 

 cold, of dryness and humidity, and our soil 

 offering every variety of surface, leads us to 

 expect a corresponding exuberance of these 

 productions when they shall be more fully 

 examined. Their study, however, is diffi- 

 cult, as many of the tribes are too fugitive 

 in their nature to be capable of preserva- 

 tion, and the student is consequently com- 

 pelled to examine them in their native lo- 

 calities, with such aids as he may have at 

 hand ; while many others are so minute, or 

 their fructification so obscure, as to require 

 a high power of the microscope to detect 

 their characters. The different depart- 

 ments into which this branch of botany is 

 now subdivided, have been within a short 

 time ably elucidated by some of the most 

 distinguished naturalists of Europe, and in 

 their systems we recognise many of our na- 

 tive species, which have been sent to them 

 by their American correspondents. Our 

 mosses have been described by Michaux. 



