GO HAKDY ROOK OF 
vast brotherhood of stately trunks and intermingling 
branches. 
The species may be readily known byits peculiarly sleek 
appearance, by its freedom from dirt, and its long cylin- 
drical-winged scaly shoots, as also by being a span long in 
wet, but shorter in dry places. The leaves are thin and 
soft, smooth, and rather shining, and when dry, crumpled. 
This fine moss derives its name of spotless from the pecu- 
liarity already noticed. 
June 9th. A deeply interesting day. Gathered tufts of 
the Pendulous Feather-moss (//. curtij3endulum)from a dwarf 
oak in Wistman's Wood, Dartmoor. 
Wistman's Wood is associated with the most ancient records 
of our country. Its dwarf oak-trees, widely and wildly 
scattered, arise from out the interstices of granite masses 
that lie scattered in all directions, or else grow among 
them. Those trees, once stately and umbrageous, sprung 
most probably from the roots of such as were destroyed by 
fire, when many a widely-extended forest was cut down or 
burnt in winter, in order to dispossess the wild beasts and 
outlaws that sought their covert* Those stunted-looking 
trees, exposed to the continual action of bleak winds that 
rush howling past the precipitous descent on which Jhey 
grow, have lost their upper branches, and look as if shortened 
of half their height ; few, if any, are more than ten or twelve 
feet high ; but though deprived of their 'natural beauty with 
respect to height, such branches as still remain hare spread 
far and wide, twisting 'in the most fantastic manner, and 
festooned with ivy and creeping plants. Their trunks are 
also thickly imbedded in a covering of moss, and seem of 
enormous thickness in proportion to their height ; but such 
is not the case, their apparent size is owing merely to the 
rich garniture that envelopes them. The moss by wiuJi 
they are invested, and which occasions stunted branches not 
larger than the wrist to equal in apparent size the trunks of 
giant oaks, is simply the Pendulous Feather-moss in its 
