494 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Imagine, then, a dull February day, with the roads two or 
three inches deep in mud, and most uninviting for pedes- 
trians, a thick fog hanging over the meandering Wye and its 
adjacent meadows. Turn with me to yon wooded hill • even 
the deep lane with high banks of red sand, where the dying 
fern fronds droop hopelessly, and the mosses display their most 
brilliant green, is less dirty than the main road. The lane 
leads past a quarry, and then you enter the wood. Perhaps 
the trees do drip a little, but only in the lower part ; the path 
ascends by rocky steps, it is wide enough to save any danger 
to the looped-up dress from the long grass at its edges, and as 
you rise higher and higher the atmosphere becomes clearer. 
Red rock, cropping out here and there, retains but little of its 
original form, for the mosses clothe it thickly about its base, 
and our Mends the Jungermanniae cling upon the damp bank 
beneath it. We find large leaves, or more properly fronds, 
lapping one over another, each rooted to the wet ground ; 
this is one of the Frondose Liverworts, J. epiplujlla (No. 13). 
Out of the substance of these fronds, a little cup or calyx has 
arisen, presently a tubular calyptra will spring from it, then 
a long transparent stalk, bearing the round receptacle, which 
will burst into a cross of four broad valves. The fronds are 
dark green, shaded with brown or purple in the centre. This 
Liverwort is a common object, not only in our woods, but on 
damp garden walks, and even on flower-pots in wet places. 
A closely allied species, with fronds curled at the edges, and 
of a paler hue, flourishes about a small spring in the same 
wood • its large white calyptrae, and the narrow segments into 
which the receptacle splits, are clear marks of distinction : 
J. pinguis (No. 12). Clustering about the tree roots, and some- 
times growing in patches on the lower part of the bark, you 
find the slender fronds of the J. furcata (No. 11). Its pale 
green hue attracts the attention, and its crowded fronds have 
a mossy appearance ; it is only when you stoop to examine it 
closely that you recognize their strap shape. 
Nearing the top of the wood, splendid blocks of pudding- 
stone guard the path on either side. Here it well repays the 
botanist to take out his glass, and examine the plants on the 
southern surface. I could name half a dozen mosses, and 
nearly as many lichens, as well as several ferns, among those 
rock dwellers ; but I must restrict myself to Jungermannige. 
To begin at the base, where the mosses grow thick, we find 
interlacing amongst them the familiar branches of the J. 
Asplenoides, the largest and most frequent of the Leafy Liver- 
worts (No. 1). This plant is rare in fruit, but its long branches, 
with their outspread rows of horizontal leaves, pale green 
and glittering, are to be seen on every damp hedge-bank or 
shady copse. The slender J. bidentatci grows under that rock 
