Gryptogamia u 
171 
pound frond, leaflets lance-shaped, somewhat acute ; 
the lowest pinnatifid, the upper smaller. In heaths and 
neglected pastures, very common. 
Order II. Musci, Mosses . 
The plants arranged under this order are furnished 
with distinct leaves, and often with a distinct stem. 
The membranous corolla, which is of a conical form, 
is called a calyptra^ or veil, and the summit is the stig« 
ma. This veil covers the capsule, which, before the 
seed ripens, is raised on a footstalk. The capsule, 
which opens by a vertical lid, consists of one cell and 
one valve, and the seeds are extremely minute and 
numerous. The stamens and pistils 6f the mosses are 
generally in separate plants, but in a few species they 
are united in the same flower. 
According to the method adopted by Linnaeus., 
the genera of mosses are determined chiefly by the 
lateral or terminal situation of the capsule ; but the 
structure of the fringe or peristomium, which borders 
the orifice of the capsule, as proposed by Hedwig, affords 
more obvious and more precise marks of discrimination. 
The fringe is either simple or double, and is composed 
either of separate teeth, as is mostly the case, with the 
external fringe, or of a plaited and jagged membrane, 
which is the form of the inner fringe when it exists. 
The number of teeth, which is remarkably constant in 
each genus and species, is either four, eight, sixteen, 
thirty-two, or sixty-four. 
The mosses are divided into three sections ; as they 
are destitute of fringe, or as they are furnished with a 
P 2 
