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and humid character and especially adapted to the production of a 
profuse cryptogamic flora which everywhere abounds, from the tiny 
mosses that clothe every damp clay bank in velvet of richest browns 
and greens and that require a strong magnifier to resolve them into 
beautiful perfect fruited plants, up through cryptogams of larger 
growth, lichens, hepatics and ferns to the great bracken, Pteris aquilim, 
that in favorable situations reaches a height of fifteen feet with a 
rachis like a giant’s staff. Such is our forest undergrowth, of per- 
ennial green, “A thing of beauty and a joy forever.” 
Profusion and paucity, however, seem to follow each other in 
cycles, the causes of which are not yet made out, and the prolific 
years of 1903-4 have been succeeded by a strange suppression of the 
moss-flora, so that in 1905 and subsequently very little could be done 
in collecting, but there are indications at last, of a return to fruitful 
seasons and what may be considered normal conditions, which may 
continue for years to come. 
As to the relative abundance of the genera, perhaps first place 
should be accorded to the Mniums in their many varieties, with M. 
Insigne leading, and covering large tracts with its dark green foliage 
and abundant fruit. Though taking kindly to either humus or rotten 
wood the former seems to be its natural habitat, and so dense, at 
times, is its growth and fruitage that one season fifty perfect plants 
might be taken at a single grasp. These were nearly all insigne, 
but strangely enough while the succeeding spring disclosed the same 
areas as densely populated with Mniums as before, insigne was notice- 
able only by its absence, and venustum, glabrescens and other lesser 
varieties monopolized the ground. This was sufficiently surprising 
and presents a problem yet to be solved. Was it a natural rotation 
or what ? 
M. Menziesi is somewhat arboreal in habit and affects the living 
trunks of Acer macrophyllum, but frequently adapts itself to rich and 
damp humus along brooksides ; its likeness to Climacium in such 
situations is apt to cause it to be overlooked unless in fruit, when its 
identity is unmistakable. 
The Hylocomiums undoubtedly rank next in profusion, and 
H. splendens, loreum triquetrum representing a large percentage of the 
entire moss flora of the Coast. The first is especially luxuriant and 
is without a peer and our finest bryophyte, but it is a rare and shy 
fruiter. In habitat it occupies indiscriminately the ground in shady 
forests or rotten logs and stumps, but never living trees or wet situa- 
tions. H. loreum is found exclusively on decayed wood, is a profuse 
fruiter and with its abundant red capsules is a strikingly beautiful 
plant. H. triquetrum is also an abundant variety, covering large tracts 
of damp soil or wet rock with its pale green foliage, and climbing 
over prostrate timber and upturned roots of trees. It fruits rarely 
but occasionally produces abundant capsules. 
