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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Their vital functions, too, must not be overlooked, for their 
myriad cells are for ever condensing the moisture of the 
atmosphere and adding their tribute to every mountain rill, 
which, borne onward to the ocean, is again returned to them 
in the mists and snow-wreaths that are their constant at- 
tendants. 
In winter and early spring they contribute much to the 
verdant covering of the earth, and to the supply of oxygen 
afterwards given out by the leaves of higher plants. I have 
mentioned the vast number of species that people our moss, 
world, all unsurpassed in beauty of structure by any other 
group ; and these are but a fragment of the Creator’s handi- 
work, unnoticed and uncared for by the ordinary passer-by; 
yet, though ‘ yielding neither sustenance for the hungry nor 
medicine for the sick, there are times when their study will 
supply both food and physic to the mind. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE LXXVII. 
а. Funaria hygrometrica, nat. size. 
1. Spores. 
2. Prothallium and young plants. 
3. Male flower. 
4. Antheridia and paraphyses. 
5. Antheridium discharging spermatozoids, with one of the latter very 
highly magnified. 
б. Fertilised archegonium. 
7. Young fruit with vaginula. 
8. Calyptra. 
9. Perfect fruit before the fall of the lid. 
10. One of the stomata from neck of same. 
11. Portion of the annulus. 
12. Longitudinal section through the fully-formed green fruit, showing 
the small sporangium, nearly filled by the columella. 
13. Peristome. 
14. A single tooth of outer and of inner peristome, with the central 
cribrose disc. 
15. A leaf, with the cells constituting its areolation. 
