196 CLASS CRYPTOGAMIA. 
before the pedicel 
grew up, served as 
a kind of calyx to 
protect the embryo 
fruit 3 d, the oper¬ 
culum, , or lid, 
which, before the 
theca is ripe, is co¬ 
vered by the ca- 
lyptra 3 e, the ca~ 
lyptra , or veil 3 f 
the fringe, or teeth, 
which, when the 
theca is ripe, and has thrown off its other parts, often appear around 
its edge 3 g , the barren or staminate flower of a moss. 
The mosses are generally perennial and evergreen, and capable 
of growing in colder climates than most other vegetables. In Spitz- 
bergen, the rocks which rise from the surrounding ice are thickly 
clothed with moss. A botanist who travelled in Greenland, counted 
more than twenty different species of moss without rising from a 
rock where he was seated. 
All the parts of the mosses which have been described, are not seen 
without the assistance of a good microscope. It is not to be expected 
that young botanists will be fond of this department of the science, 
although those who become acquainted with it, discover much en¬ 
thusiasm in its pursuit. The following interesting remarks on Cryp- 
togamous plants are taken from an English writer. 
“Mosses and Ferns, by the inconsiderate mind, are deemed a 
useless or insignificant part of the creation. That they are not, is 
evident from this, that He who made them has formed nothing in 
vain, but on the contrary has pronounced all his creation to be good. 
Many of their uses we know 3 that they have many more which we 
know not, is unquestionable, since there is probably no one thing in 
the universe, of which we can dare to assert, that we know ali its 
uses. Thus much we are certain of, with respect to mosses, that as 
they flourish most in winter, and at that time cover the ground with 
a beautiful green carpet, in many places which would otherwise be 
naked, and when little verdure is elsewhere to be seen 3 so at the same 
time, they shelter and preserve the seeds, roots, germs, and embryo 
plants of many vegetables, which would otherwise perish. They fur¬ 
nish materials for birds to build their nests with, they afford a warm 
winter's retreat for some quadrupeds, such as bears, dormice, and 
the like, and for numberless insects which are the food of birds and 
j 
fishes, and these again the food or delight of men. Many of them 
grow on rocks and barren places, and by rotting away, afford the 
first principles of vegetation to other plants, which never else could 
have taken root there. Others grow in bogs and marshes, and by 
continual increase and decay, fill up and convert them into fertile 
pastures, or into peat-bogs, the source of inexhaustible fuel to the po¬ 
lar regions. 
“ They are applicable also to many domestic purposes. The Ly¬ 
copodiums are some of them used in the dying of yarn, and in medi¬ 
cine 3 the Sphagnum (peat-moss) and Polytrichum , furnish conve¬ 
nient beds for the Laplanders, and the Eypnums are used in the ti- 
Mosses capable of enduring cold-—Microscope necessary in examining mosses—Re¬ 
marks of an English writer. 
