LICHEN AND MOSS GARDENS. 
157 
Cetraria islandica, or Iceland Mos9, are useful for their medicinal properties ; or 
in the arts and manufactures, as the Roecella tinctoria, or Canary-weed, which 
yields the dye known as Orchill, employed to give the purple tint to blue broad- 
cloth ; and why should not the culturist also claim an interest in them, and bring 
them beneath the play of his art ? There is no class of the vegetable race — 
(< From giant Oaks that wave their branches dark, 
To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark," 
and the grey Lichens that spread 
" Round the dark roots, rent bark, and shattered boughs," 
but is capable of lending a heightening touch to a garden scene, or improving the 
interest of some retired nook. 
By far the larger number of the Mosses and Lichens yet discovered will exist 
in our own climate: hence an extensive and varied collection might easily be 
brought together. Mosses are, perhaps, the most beautiful and varied of all the 
cryptogamic race of plants ; yet there are few places where these have been 
deemed significant enough for any other purpose in a garden than for packing, for 
affording protection to other plants from frost or drought, for concealing pots within 
a vase, or similar uses. Now, if they are sufficiently beautiful, (and who will say 
they are not ?) for surfacing over the pots sunk in vases in the pleasure-ground, 
and even for the flower-stand in the drawing-room, why should they not also be 
separately cultivated in other places in the garden, that are denuded of ornament ? 
Most people who take any pleasure at all in the vegetable creation, will be 
delighted with the green verdure of a mossy carpet in a moist plantation, or when 
enveloping the arms of some fading forest-tree, or spreading over the rocks and 
stones beneath it; and we can readily conceive it possible to transfer the same features 
to the garden, preserving each kind in masses with its proper name. The crea- 
tion of such plots would give an impetus to the study of these really elegant plants, 
which we believe are only neglected from their escaping observation amid the pro- 
fusion of more luxuriant forms, whilst the preservation of their names would lead 
to a more careful investigation, and an easy recognition of their distinguishing 
traits. 
Something of this kind we have attempted in the pleasure-grounds at Chats- 
worth, with success, in the vicinity, and partly upon a portion, of the extensive 
artificial rockeries lately formed near the great stove conservatory. This station 
affords sites of various character, admitting of some adaptation in the disposal of 
the species to the natural localities which each delight in. A small lake, which 
occupies the hollow inclosed amongst the rocky mounds, increases the suitableness 
of the place, and creates a more extensive diversity of situation. Here the Mosses 
are planted in broad patches of from one to two feet across, each patch being 
entirely composed of one species only. We have not attempted any botanical 
arrangement of the different families or species ; but have sought rather to produce 
