174 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
(6) The ruddock would, 
With charitable bill, 
. . . bring thee all this ; 
Yea, and furr’d Moss besides, when flowers are none, 
To winter-ground thy corse.— Cymbeline , iv. 2, 224. 1 
If it were not for the pretty notice of Moss in the last 
passage (6), we should be inclined to say that Shakespeare had 
as little regard for “idle Moss” as for the “baleful Mistletoe.” 
In his day Moss included all the low-growing and apparently 
flowerless carpet plants which are now divided into the many 
families of Mosses, Lichens, Club Mosses, Hepaticse, Junger- 
mannise, &c., &c. And these plants, though holding no rank 
in the eyes of a florist, are yet deeply interesting to those who 
have time and patience to study them. The Club Mosses, 
indeed, may claim a place in the garden if they can only be 
induced to grow, but that is a difficult task, and the tenderer 
Lycopodiums are always favourites when well grown among 
greenhouse Ferns; but for the most part, the Mosses must be 
studied in their native haunts, and when so studied, they are 
found to be full of beauty and of wonderful construction. 
Nor are they without use, and it is rather strange that Shake¬ 
speare should have so markedly called them “idle,” or useless, 
considering that in his day many medical virtues were attributed 
to them. This reputation for medical virtues they have now 
all lost, except the Iceland Moss, which is still in use for 
invalids; but the Mosses have other uses. The Reindeer Moss 
(Cladonia rangiferma ) and Roch-hair ( Alectona jubatd) are 
indispensable to the Laplander as food for his reindeer, and 
Usnea florida is used in North America as food for cattle ; the 
Iceland Moss ( Cetraria Islandica) is equally indispensable as 
an article of food to all the inhabitants of the extreme North; 
and the Tripe de la Roche ( Gyrophora cylindricd) has furnished 
1 There may be special appropriateness in the selection of the “furr’d 
Moss” to “winter-ground thy corse.” “The final duty of Mosses is to 
die; the main work of other leaves is in their life, but these have to form 
the earth, out of which other leaves are to grow.”— Ruskin, Proserpina, 
p. 20. 
