190 
ORDER HEPATICiR. 
theca is ripe, and 
lias thrown off its 
other parts, often 
appear around its 
edge ; g the bar- 
ren or staminate 
flower of a moss. 
The mosses are 
mostly perennial 
and evergreen, 
and capable of 
growing in colder climates than most other vegetables. In 
Spitzbergen, the rocks which rise from the surrounding ice are 
thickly clothed with moss. A botanist who traveled in Green- 
land, counted more than twenty different species of moss with- 
out rising from a rock where he was seated. 
" Mosses and Ferns," says Thornton, an English botanist, " by the inconsiderate 
miud, are deemed a useless or insignificant part of the creation. Thus much we 
are certain of, with respect to mosses, that as they flourish most in winter, and at 
that time cover the ground with a beautiful green carpet, in many places which 
would otherwise be naked, and when little verdure is elsewhere to be seen ; so at 
the same time, they shelter and preserve the seeds, roots, germs, and embryo 
plants of many vegetables, which would otherwise perish. They furnish materials 
for birds to build their nests Avith, they afford a warm winter's retreat for some 
quadrupeds, such as bears, dormice, and the like, and for numberless insects which 
are the food of birds and fishes, and these again the food or delight of men. Many 
of them grow on rocks and barren places, and by rotting away afford the first prin- 
ciples of vegetation to other plants, which never else could have taken root there. 
Others grow in bogs and marshes, and by continual increase and decay, fill up and 
convert them into fertile pastures, or into peat-bogs, the source of inexhaustible 
fuel to the polar regions. They are applicable also to many domestic purposes 
The Lycopodiwns are used in the dyeing of yarn, and in medicine ; the Sphagnum. 
(peat-moss) and Polytrichum furnish convenient beds for the Laplanders, and 
the Hypnmns are used in the tiling of houses, stopping crevices in walls, packing 
brittle wares and the roots of plants for distant conveyance. To which may bo 
added, that all in general contribute entertainment and agreeable instruction to 
the contemplative mind of the naturalist, at a season when few other plants offer 
themselves to his view. The Fungi have been suspected by some to be, hka 
sponges and corals, the habitations of some unknown living beings, and being alka 
line, have been classed in the animal kingdom ; but they are known to produce 
seeds, from which perfect plants have been raised ; and the celebrated Hedwig, 
by great dexterity of dissection, and by using microscopes of very highly magnify- 
ing powers, assures us that he has discovered both stamens and pistils, not only in 
this order of plants, but in the other orders of the Cryptogamous family."* 
287. Order Hepatim (Liverworts) — co\it2i\nQfrondose^ or moss- 
like plants, which are more succulent or juicy than the mosses ; 
they have four-valved thecse, which circumstance, and that of 
their not opening with a lid, distinguish them from the mosses 
• Notwithstanding the weight which Thornton gives to the opinion, of Hedwig and others, it is, at 
present, mach doubted by naturalists, whether the Fungi have organs analogous to stamens and pistih. 
Explain Fig. 160— Mosses capable of enduring cold— o. Remarks of Thornton.— 287. Liverworta, 
