Chapter VI: GYMNOGENS { Cotyledons, two or (7)

Although fungi are in an especial manner capable of universal dissemination, yet we find that in their geographical distribution they are as much restricted as other plants. Some representatives of the class are found in every part of the world, and some particular species have the power of indefinite extension and localization, but, as a whole, like the higher cryptogams, they can only spread within certain limited areas. In tropical forests, where the exuberance of the vegetation excludes the rays of the sun, and creates the dim light and the still, moist air which they love, and where there is always an immense quantity of decaying organic matter, we might expect to find them in the greatest quantity and luxuriance. But, strange to say, fungi, as a class, are comparatively rare in tropical woods. Their headquarters seem to be in northern latitudes, where the temperature is mild and genial, and where there is a constant supply of moisture. Professor Fries of Upsal, the presiding genius of these plants, gathered in Sweden, within a space of ground not exceeding a square furlong, more than two thousand distinct species. “This country,” says Mr. Berkeley, “with its various soils, large mixed forests, and warm summer temperature, seems to produce more species than any part of the known world; and next in order, perhaps, are the United States as far south as South Carolina, where they absolutely swarm. A moist autumn after a genial summer is most conducive to their growth, but cold, wet summers are seldom productive. The portion of the Himalayas which lies immediately north of Calcutta is, perhaps, almost as prolific in point of individuals as the countries named above, but the number of species on examination proves far less than might at first have been suspected. It is probably not a fifth of what occurs in Sweden. Great Britain, though possessing a considerable list of species, is not abundant in individuals, except as regards a limited number of species. The exuberance, even in the most favorable autumn, is not to be compared with that of Sweden or many parts of Germany.” They are found in Arctic and Antarctic regions, almost as far as the limits of vegetation. They penetrate to the dreary regions of Greenland and Lapland, supplying the natives with their tinder, and with an excellent styptic for stopping blood and allaying pain; and they announce to the hapless exiles of Siberia, when their gayly colored forms spring forth from the crevices of the rocks, and in the dark haunts of the gloomy fir-woods, that the stormy blasts of winter and spring are past, and that the summer and autumn, those short, sweet seasons of indescribable beauty and pleasure, have come.

Certain genera and species occur only in tropical and sub-tropical regions, having their northern limit in the north of Africa or the coast of the Mediterranean. Several genera and species are confined to New Zealand, others to Ceylon and Java, others to the Cape de Verde Islands and the United States. Like flowering plants, the fungi of different climates and zones are found at different heights along the sides of tropical mountains that rise above the snow-line. In the Sikkim Himalayas, Polyporus Sanguineus, and Xanthopus luxuriate in the stifling tropical woods at the base of the hills; higher up the fungi peculiar to Ceylon and Java grow among the palms and tree-ferns of the mid regions; higher still, the species of Southern Europe abound in the deodar forests and among the rhododendron thickets of the upper heights; while below the line of perpetual snow, on grassy slopes and amid scrubby vegetation, may be seen species, if not identical with, at least very closely allied to, those of Britain and Sweden. One species has been found at a height of 18,000 feet, which is probably the highest range of fungoid growth.

FAIRY RINGS
--A. B. STEELE

The green circles, or parts of circles in pastures, popularly known as fairy rings, have given rise to many curious beliefs and sayings, and their marvelously rapid growth has struck the uncultivated as a supernatural phenomenon. The prevalent belief was that they were caused by the midnight dancing and revelry of the fairies; and Shakespeare speaks of the elves--

“Whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms.”

In the west of England these rings are called “hogs’ tracks.” In the myths and folklore of Sweden they are said to be enchanted circles made by fairies. The elves perform their midnight _stimm_, or dance, and the grass produced after the dancing is called _ailfexing_. A belief prevails in some parts of this country that any one treading within the magic circles either loses consciousness, or can not retrace his steps. Many absurd theories have been propounded as to the cause of these rings. Aubrey, who wrote the _Natural History of Wiltshire_, in the Seventeenth Century, says that they are generated from the breaking out of a fertile subterraneous vapor, which comes from a kind of conical concave, and endeavors to get out at a narrow passage at the top, which forces it to make another cone, inversely situated to the other, the top of which is the green circle. Another remarkable theory by a writer, quoted in Captain Brown’s notes to White’s _Selborne_, attributes these rings to the droppings of starlings, which when in large flights frequently alight on the ground in circles, and are sometimes known to sit a considerable time in these annular congregations. It was also thought that such circles were caused by the effects of electricity, and for this belief the withered part of the grass within the circles may have given foundation. Priestley was a strong advocate of the electric theory, and was supported by many eminent men of his time.

“So from the clouds the playful lightning wings,
Rives the firm oak, and prints the fairy rings,”

says Dr. Darwin, and appends a note that flashes of lightning, attracted by the moister part of grassy plains, are the actual cause of fairy rings. Archæologists suggested that they might be the remains of circles formed by the ancient inhabitants of Britain, in the celebration of their sports, or the worship of their deities. Naturalists formerly came to the conclusion that the rings were caused by the underground workings of insects, and a few years ago a writer in the _Transactions of the Woolhope Club_ attempted to prove that they were the work of moles. These so-called fairy rings, which have long puzzled philosophers, are caused by a peculiar mode of the growth of certain species of fungi, the peculiarity being their tendency to assume a circular form. A patch of spawn arising from a single seed, or a collection of seeds, spreads centrifugally in every direction and forms a common felt from which the fruit rises at its extreme edge; the soil in the inner part of the disk is exhausted, and the spawn dies or becomes effete there while it spreads all round in an outward direction and produces another crop, whose spawn spreads again. The circle is thus continually enlarged and extends indefinitely until some cause intervenes to destroy it. This mode of growth is far more common than is supposed, and may be constantly seen in our woods, when the spawn can be spread only in the soil or among the leaves and decaying fragments which cover it. In the fields this tendency is illustrated by the formation of circles or parts of circles of vigorous dark green grass. To get at the cause, however, of the rank growth of the grass composing these rings is not without its difficulties still. It is known that fungi exhaust the soil of plant-food and store it up in their own substance. In the case of these fairy rings they take up from the soil the organic nitrogen which is not available to the grasses, and in some way become the medium of the supply of the soil-nitrogen to the grasses forming the circle. How exactly the nitrogen, one of the most important plant-foods, is fixed by these fungi has not yet been discovered, but the grasses immediately following the fungi have been analyzed and found to contain a larger proportion of nitrogen than the herbage in the neighborhood.

Fairy rings are sometimes distinctly seen visible on a hillside from a considerable distance, many of them being years old and of enormous dimensions. One recorded from Stebbing, in Essex, measured 120 feet across, the grass all over it being very coarse and dark green in color, chiefly of the cock’s-foot species. Rings found in pasture lands are composed of several species of fungi, all of which are edible. They are most frequently observed to be formed by marasmius oreades, a little buff mushroom which most people know under the name of champignons, or Scotch bonnets. It is abundant everywhere. For several months in the year it comes up in successive crops in great profusion after rain, and continually traces fairy rings among the grass.

Another and very delicious mushroom, agaricus prunulus, sometimes called the plum agaric, and known in America as the French mushroom, occasionally succeeds a crop of the champignons which had recently occupied the same site. It is sometimes found throughout the summer, but autumn is the time to look for it. The only other good edible fungi to be found in any quantity forming rings are the horse-mushroom, the giant-mushroom, and St. George’s mushroom. The first two are excellent eating, and to be had in the late summer and autumn; but the last are reproduced in rings in spring every year--the circle continuing to increase till it breaks up into irregular lines. The continuity of the circle is a sign to the collector that there will be a plentiful harvest next spring, while the breaking up is conclusive proof that it is going to disappear from that place. Spring is the only time it makes its appearance, and the proper place to look for it is the borders of woodlands. It is one of the most savory of mushrooms, and difficult to be confounded with any other, as it appears at a time when scarcely any other kinds occur. Like the champignon, it has an advantage over the common mushroom in the readiness with which it dries, and is largely employed in the preparation of ketchup. It is called St. George’s mushroom on account of its appearing about St. George’s Day, the 23d of April, and among the peasants of Austria is looked on as a special gift from that saint. In Italy a basket of early specimens is a favorite present among all classes.

LICHENS
--HUGH MACMILLAN

Lichens are exceedingly diversified in their form, appearance, and texture. About five hundred different kinds have been found in Great Britain alone, while upward of three thousand species have been discovered in different parts of the world by the zealous researches of naturalists. In their very simplest rudimentary forms, they consist apparently of nothing more than a collection of powdery granules, so minute that the figure of each is scarcely distinguishable, and so dry and utterly destitute of organization that it is difficult to believe that any vitality exists in them. Some of these form ink-like stains on the smooth tops of posts and felled trees; others are sprinkled like flower of brimstone or whiting over shady rocks and withered tufts of moss; while a third species is familiar to every one, as covering with a bright green incrustation the trunks and boughs of trees in the squares and suburbs of smoky towns, where the air is so impure as to forbid the growth of all other vegetation. It also creeps over the grotesque figures and elaborate carving on the roofs and pillars of Roslin Chapel, near Edinburgh, and gives to the whole an exquisitely beautiful and romantic appearance. One species, the Lepraria Jolithus, is associated with many a superstitious legend. Linnæus, in his journal of a tour through Œland and East Gothland, thus alludes to it: “Everywhere near the road I saw stones covered with a blood-red pigment, which on being rubbed turned into a light yellow, and diffused a smell of violets, whence they have obtained the name of violet stones; though, indeed, the stone itself has no smell at all, but only the moss with which it is dyed.” At Holywell, in North Wales, the stones are covered with this curious lichen, which gives them the appearance of being stained with blood; and, of course, the peasantry allege that it is the ineffaceable blood which dropped from Ste. Winifred’s head, when she suffered martyrdom on that sacred spot. A higher order of lichens (Bæomyces) is furnished besides this powdery crust, with solid, fleshy, club-shaped fructification like a minute pink fungus; while a singularly beautiful genus (Calicium), usually of a very vivid yellow color, spreading in indefinite patches over oaks and firs, is provided with capsules somewhat like those of the mosses.

Most of the crustaceous lichens are merely gray filmy patches inseparable from their growing places, indefinitely spreading, or bounded by a narrow dark border, which always intervenes to separate them when two species closely approximate, and studded all over with black, brown, or red tubercles. The foliaceous species are usually round rosettes of various colors, attached by dense black fibres all over their under-surface, or by a single knot-like root in the centre. Some are dry and membranaceous; while others are gelatinous and pulpy, like aerial sea-weeds left exposed on island rocks by the retiring waves of an extinct ocean. Some are lobed with woolly veins underneath; and others reticulated above, and furnished with little cavities or holes on the under-surface. The higher orders of lichens, though destitute of anything resembling vascular tissue, exhibit considerable complexity of structure. Some are scrubby and tufted, with stem and branches like miniature trees; others bear a strong resemblance to the corallines of our seashores; while a third class, “the green-fringed cup-moss with the scarlet tip,” as Crabble calls it, is exceedingly graceful, growing in clusters beside the black peat moss or underneath the heather tuft,

“And, Hebe-like, upholding
Its cups with dewy offering to the sun.”

As an illustration of the extraordinary appearance which lichens occasionally present, I may describe the Opegrapha, or written lichen, perhaps the most curious and remarkable member of this strange tribe. In her cacti and orchids sportive Nature often displays a ludicrous resemblance to insects, birds, animals, and even the “human face and form divine”; but this is one of the few instances in which she has condescended to imitate in her vegetable productions the written language of man. A cryptogam is in this case a cryptogram! The crust of the curious autograph of nature is a mere white tartareous film of indefinite extent, sometimes bounded by a faint line of black, like a mourning letter. It spreads over the bark of trees, particularly the beech, the hazel, and the ash. On the birch-tree--whose smooth, snow-white vellum-like bark seems designed by nature for the inscription of lovers’ names and magic incantations--it may often be seen covering the whole trunk. The fructification consists of long wavy black lines, sometimes parallel like Runic inscriptions; sometimes arrow-headed, like the cuneiform characters engraved upon the monumental stones of Persepolis and Assyria; and sometimes gathered together in groups and clusters, bearing a strong resemblance to Hebrew, Arabic, or Chinese letters.

Lichens are extremely simple in their construction. They are composed of two parts, the nutritive and the reproductive system. The nutritive portion is called the thallus, which, in the typical plant, spreads equally on all sides from the original point of development, in the from of an increasing circle; the circumference of which is often healthy, while the central parts are decayed or completely wanting.

Nature has bestowed upon the lichens a peculiar mode of reproduction which appears quite different from that of the higher orders of the vegetable kingdom; and yet they are propagated with as unerring certainty and as great rapidity as the most prolific family of flowers. Every one who has an attentive eye must have often noticed the curious round disks or shields, usually of a different color from the rest of the plant, with which their surface is often studded. These are called apothecia, and correspond with the flowers of the higher plants; for in them are lodged the seeds or germs by which the lichens are perpetuated. When examined under the microscope they are found to consist of a number of delicate flask-shaped cells, called thecæ, containing 4, 8, 12, or 16 sporidia, that is, cells of an oval form, with spores or seeds in their interior. The mode in which these spores are ejected affords as wonderful a proof of design as in the case of ferns and mosses.

1, Cinnamon; 2, Camphire (Camphor); 3, Pomegranate; 4, Sycamore Figs; 5, Olive Twig and Fruit; 6, Theobroma Cacao (Chocolate)]

Lichens are very slow-growing plants. They spring up somewhat rapidly during the first year or two, as is evinced by the luxurious growth which they form over young fruit-trees and espaliers in gardens; but after a circular frond is formed, they subside into a dormant state, in which they remain unaltered for many years. The foliaceous and scrubby species are the most fugacious, though even these have great powers of longevity. We have no data from which to ascertain the age of tartareous species, which adhere almost inseparably to stones. Some of them are probably as old as any living organisms that exist on the earth.

In the Arctic regions--those outer boundaries of the earth where eternal winter presides--these humble plants constitute by far the largest proportion of the flora, and by their prodigious development, and their wide social distribution, give as marked and peculiar a character to the scenery as the palms and tree-ferns impart to the landscapes of the tropics. In the Southern Hemisphere also lichens extend almost to the pole. They mark the extreme limit at which land vegetation has been found; one scrubby species, with large, deep, chestnut-colored fructification, called Usnea fasciata, having been observed by Lieutenant Kendal on Deception Island, the Ultima Thule of the Antarctic regions.

In tropical countries, where there is not too much moisture and shade, the trees are shaggy with lichens; and some of the most magnificent species, both as regards size and color, have been gathered in the Cinchona forests which clothe the lower slopes of the Andes, and in the warmer and more densely wooded parts of Australia and New Zealand. The thick impervious forests of Brazil, however, are said to be almost destitute of them. On the Alps of Switzerland the last lichens are to be found on the highest summits, attached to projecting rocks, exposed to the scorching heats of summer and the fierce blasts of winter; and from forty to forty-five kinds have been found in spots, surrounded by extensive masses of snow, between 10,000 and 14,780 feet above the level of the sea. It is interesting to know that the only plant found by Agassiz near the top of Mont Blanc was the Lecidea geographica, a very beautiful lichen, which covers the exposed rocks on the sides and summits of all the British hills, with its bright-green, map-like patches. This species was also gathered by Dr. Hooker at an elevation of 19,000 feet on the Himalayas, and occupied the last outpost of vegetation which gladdened the eyes of the illustrious Humboldt, when standing within a few hundred feet of the summit of Chimborazo, the highest peak of the Andes.

The Lecidea geographica affords, I may mention, the most remarkable example of the almost universal diffusion of lichens, being the most Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine lichen in the world--facing the savage cliffs of Melville Island in the extreme north, clinging to the volcanic rocks of Deception Island in the extreme south, and scaling the towering peak of Kinchin-junga, the most elevated spot on the surface of the earth.

It is somewhat remarkable that Alpine lichens generally are more or less of a brown or black color. This peculiarity seems to be owing to the presence of usnine or usnic acid, which in a pure state is of a green color, as in the lichens which grow in shady forests, but which becomes oxidized, and changes to every shade of brown and black, when exposed to the powerful agencies of light and heat on the bleak barren rocks on the mountain side and summit. These gloomy lichens, associated as they always are with the dusky tufts of that singular genus of mosses, the Andræas, give a very marked and peculiar character to many of the Highland mountains, especially to the summit of Ben Nevis, where they creep, in the utmost profusion, over the fragments of abraded rocks which strew the ground on every side, otherwise bare and leafless, as was the world on the first morning of creation, and reminding one of the ruin of some stupendous castle, or the battlefield of the Titans. Some of the Alpine lichens, however, are remarkable for the vividness and brilliancy of their colors. The mountain cup-moss, with its light green stalk clothed and filigreed with scales and emerald cup studded round with rich scarlet knobs, presents no unapt resemblance to a double red daisy. It grows in large clusters on the bare storm-scalped ridges, and forms a kind of miniature flower-garden in the Alpine wilderness. The loveliest, however, of all the mountain lichens is the Solorina crocea, which spreads over the loose mould in the clefts of rocks, and on the fragments of comminuted schist on the summits of the highest Highland mountains, forming patches of the most beautiful and vivid green, varied, when the under side of the lobes is curled up, by reticulations of a very rich orange-saffron color. This species is not found at a lower elevation than 4,000 feet; hence it is unknown in England, Ireland, and Wales, whose highest mountains fall considerably short of this altitude. I have gathered it on Cairngorm, Ben Macdhui, and Ben Lawers. In this last locality, which is well known to botanists as exhibiting a perfect garden of rare and beautiful Alpine plants, it grows in greater abundance, I believe, than in any other spot in the Highlands.

On account of the large quantity of starchy matter which they contain, they often considerably, and sometimes even entirely, form the diet of man and animals in those dreary inhospitable regions where the wintry rigor, or the scorching heat of the climate, forbids all other kinds of vegetation to grow. Every one is familiar with the fact that the reindeer-moss (Cladonia rangiferina) forms altogether the food of that animal during the prolonged northern winters. This lichen grows sparingly in little tufts among the heather in Scotland, and sometimes whitens the sides and plateaus of the Highland hills, covering bare and verdureless places where the snow first falls in winter and lingers longest in summer; but it is in the vast sandy plains, called by the Laplanders Flechten-tundra and Moos-tundra, as lichens or mosses predominate, which border the Arctic Ocean, that it flourishes in the greatest profusion and luxuriance. There it completely covers the ground with its snowy tufts, and occupies as conspicuous a place in the economy of nature as the grass in warmer regions. Linnæus says that no plant flourishes so luxuriantly as this in the pine-forests of Lapland, the surface of the soil being completely carpeted with it for many miles in extent; and that if by an accident the forests are burned to the ground, in a very short time the lichens reappear, and resume all their original vigor.

When the ground is covered with hard and frozen snow, so that the reindeer can not obtain its usual food, it finds a substitute in a very curious lichen called rock-hair (Alectoria jubata), which covers with its beard-like tufts the trunk of almost every tree. In most severe weather the Laplanders cut down whole forests of the largest trees, that their herds may be enabled to browse at liberty upon the tufts which cover the higher branches. The vast, dreary pine-forests of Lapland possess a character which is peculiarly their own, and are perhaps more singular in the eyes of the traveler than any other feature in the landscapes of that remote and desolate region. This character they owe to the immense number of lichens with which they abound. The ground instead of grass is carpeted with dense tufts of the reindeer moss, white as a shower of new-fallen snow; while the trunks and branches of the trees are swollen far beyond their natural dimensions with huge, dusky, funereal bunches of the rock-hair hanging down in masses, exhaling a damp earthy smell, like an old cellar, or stretching from tree to tree in long festoons, waving with every breath of wind, and creating a perpetual melancholy twilight.

Another beard-like lichen (Usnea florida), often growing along with the rock-hair, is gathered in great quantities in North America, from the pine-forests, and stored up as winter fodder for cattle in inclement seasons. Goats, and especially deer, are fond of it; and in winter when other food is scarce, they hardly leave a vestige of it on the trees within their reach. The tortoises of the small rocky islands of the Galapagos Archipelago subsist almost entirely upon it. In Scotland it is one of the most picturesque ornaments of the pine-forests. When fully developed it forms tufts nearly a foot in length. It is quite a miniature larch-tree, with root, stem, and most intricate branches and twigs. Its color is pale sea-green; and a central white thread or pith runs through the main stem, and lateral branches, on which, when cracked with age, the segments of cellular tissue are strung like beads on a necklace. A kind of farinaceous meal is plentifully sprinkled on the ultimate branches. Altogether it is one of the most beautiful and interesting lichens. A reddish variety grows in such quantities on trees of Conyza arborea, forming the alley near Napoleon Bonaparte’s residence in St. Helena, that this hanging vegetation is the first thing that attracts the eye of the visitor.

But it is not to animals alone that lichens furnish a supply of food. There are few, I presume, who are not acquainted with some particulars regarding the history and uses of that remarkable lichen sold in chemists’ shops under the name of Cetraria islandica, or Iceland moss. What barley, rye, and oats are to the Indo-Caucasian races of Asia and western Europe; the olive, the grape, and the fig to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean districts; the date-palm to the Egyptian and Arabian; rice to the Hindu; and the tea-plant to the Chinese--the Iceland moss is to the Laplanders, Icelanders, and Esquimaux.

It may be mentioned that, notwithstanding its name, the Iceland moss is not only more plentiful, but more largely developed in all its varied forms in Norway than in Iceland, and it is in Norway that it is now almost exclusively collected for the European market.

Those who have read the affecting account which Franklin and Richardson give of their expedition to Arctic America must be familiar with the name of the Tripe de Roche, which occurs on almost every page, and is intimately associated with the fearful sufferings which these brave men endured, a part of which only would have sufficed to unseat the reason of most individuals. During their long and terrible journey from the Coppermine River to Fort Enterprise, one of the stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in the almost total absence of every other kind of salutary food, their lives were supported by a bitter and nauseous lichen, to which the name of Tripe de Roche (Gyrophora) has been given as if in mockery.

The Tripe de Roche consists of various species of Gyrophora--black, leather-like lichens, studded with small black points like coiled wire buttons, and attached by an umbilical root, or by short strong fibres to rocks on the mountains. Some of them bear no unapt resemblance to a piece of shagreen; while others appear corroded, like a fragment of burned skin, as if the rock on which they grew had been subjected to the action of fire. They are found in cold exposed situations on Alpine rocks of granite or micaceous schist, in almost all parts of the world--on the Himalayas and Andes as well as the British mountains. But it is in the Arctic regions alone that they luxuriate, covering the surface of every rock, to the level of the seashore, with a gloomy Plutonian vegetation that seems like the charred cinders and shriveled remains of former verdure and beauty.

MOSSES
--HUGH MACMILLAN

Mosses belong to the foliaceous or highest division of flowerless plants. Although consisting entirely of cellular tissue and increasing by simple additions of matter to the growing point or apex of parts already formed, they point to far higher orders of vegetation; they are prefigurations of the flowering plants, epitomes of archetypes in trees and flowers. There is nothing in the appearance or structure of the lichens, fungi, or algæ to remind the popular mind of higher plants; they form, as it were, a strange microcosm of their own--a perfectly distinct and peculiar order of vegetable existence. But when we ascend a step higher and come to the mosses, we find for the first time the rudimental characters and distinctions of root, stem, branches, and leaves--we recognize an ideal exemplar of the flowering plants, all whose parts and organs are, as it were, sketched out, in anticipation, in these simple and tiny organisms. Through the small, densely cushioned, moss-like Alpine flowers, they approximate analogically to the phanerogamous plants in their leaves and habits of growth; and through the cone-like spikes of the club-mosses they approximate to the pine tribe in their fructification. From both these classes of highly organized plants, however, they are separated by wide and numerous intervening links. But still it is curious and interesting to find in them an exemplification of the universal teleology of nature--the humblest typical forms pointing to the grand archetypes, the simplest structures anticipating and prefiguring the most highly organized and complicated.

In no tribe of plants is there so great a similarity between the different species as in the mosses. This remarkable similarity, concealing a no less remarkable diversity, has led to the popular belief that there is only one kind of moss. Closely examined, however, by an educated eye, their exceeding variableness of form will at once become evident, some being slender, hair-like plants; some resembling miniature fir-trees, others cedars, and others crested feathers and ostrich-plumes. In size they vary from a minute film of green scarcely visible to the naked eye to wreaths and clusters several feet in length. Nor are their colors less variable, ranging from white through every shade of yellow, red, green, and brown, to the deepest and most sombre black.

The leaves of mosses are their most prominent parts. To the careless and superficial eye, accustomed to look at a tuft of moss as merely a patch of velvety greenness, creeping over an old tree or dike, the leaves of all mosses may appear precisely similar; but the attentive observer who examines them under a microscope will find that the leaves of different kinds of trees are not more distinct from each other than are those of the mosses.

The organs of fructification, however, with which mosses are furnished, are, perhaps, the most wonderful parts of their economy. When the requisite conditions are present, these are generally developed during the winter and spring months, and may be easily recognized by their peculiar appearance. At first a forest of hair-like stalks, of a pale pink color, rises above the general level of the tuft of moss to the height of between one and three inches, giving to the moss the appearance of a pincushion well provided with pins. These stalks, through course of time, are crowned with little wen-like vessels called capsules, which are covered at an early stage with little caps, like those of the Normandy peasants, with high peaks and long lappets--in one species bearing a remarkable resemblance to the extinguisher of a candle--a curious provision for protecting them alike from the sunshine and the rain, until the delicate structures underneath are matured. When the fruit-stalk lengthens and the capsules swell, this hood or cap is torn from its support and carried up on the top of the seed-vessel, much in the same way as the common garden annual, the Eschscholtzia or Californian poppy is borne up on the summit of the cone-like petals before they expand. When the seed-vessel is riper it falls off altogether, and discloses a little lid covering the mouth of the capsule, which is also removed at a more advanced stage of growth. The mouth of the seed-vessel is then seen to be fringed all round with a single or double row of teeth, which closely fit into each other, and completely close up the aperture.

It is extremely interesting to note that the leaf is the type of the plant in the moss as in the flowering plant; the veil being merely a convolute leaf, the lid a metamorphosed leaf, the teeth one or more whorls of minute, flat leaves. It is by no means rare to find individual mosses in which leaves appear at the top of the fruit-stalk in place of the spore-case, just as happens in the phyllode of flowering plants, when the colored parts of the flower are converted into green foliage.

Mosses possess in a high degree the power of reproducing such parts of their tissue as have been injured or removed. They may be trodden under foot; they may be torn up by the plow or the harrow; they may be cropped down to the earth, when mixed with grass by graminivorous animals; they may be injured in a hundred other ways; but, in a marvelously short space of time they spring up as verdant in their appearance and as perfect in their form as though they had never been disturbed.

Mosses also possess the power of resisting, perhaps to a greater extent than most plants, the injurious operation of physical agents; and this likewise is a wise provision to qualify them for the uses which they serve in the economy of nature. The influence of heat and cold upon many of them is extremely limited; some species flourishing indiscriminately on the mountains of Greenland and the plains of Africa. They have been found growing near hot springs in Cochin-China, and fringing the sides of the geysers of Iceland, where they must have vegetated in a heat equal to 186 degrees; while, on the other hand, they have been gathered in Melville Island at 35 degrees, or only just above the freezing-point. Though frozen hard under the snow-wreaths of winter for several months, their vitality is unimpaired; and though subjected to the scorching rays of the summer’s sun they continue green and unblighted. Even when thoroughly desiccated into a brown, unshapen mass that almost crumbles into dust when touched by the hand, they revive under the influence of the genial shower, become green as an emerald; every pellucid leaf serving as a tiny mirror on which to catch the stray sunbeams. Specimens dried and pressed in the herbarium for half a century, have been resuscitated on the application of moisture, and the seed procured from their capsules has readily germinated. They grow freely in the Arctic regions, where there is a long twilight of six months’ duration; and they luxuriate in the dazzling, uninterrupted light of the tropics. They are found thriving amid moist, steam-like vapors, with orchids and tillandsias, in the deep American forests; and they may be seen in tufts here and there on the dry and arid sands of the Arabian deserts. It matters not to the healthy exercise of their functions whether the surrounding air be stagnant or in motion, for we find them on the mountain top amid howling winds and driving storms, and in the calm, silent, secluded wood, where hardly a breeze penetrates to ruffle their leaves.

Unlike the ferns, the size and number of which gradually diminish in passing from tropical to temperate countries, the maximum of mosses is found in cold climates, increasing in luxuriance, beauty, and abundance as we approach the North Pole. Like the ferns, moisture and shade are highly favorable to their growth and well-being; hence, as a rule, they produce a larger number of species and individuals, and spread over wider areas in islands and the vicinity of rivers and lakes than in the interior of continents, unless when well wooded and watered. Their favorite habitats appear to be rocky dells or ravines at the foot of mountains, with streamlets murmuring through them and dense trees interweaving their foliage over their sides and creating a dim twilight in the recesses beneath. In such hermit seclusions the botanist may expect to reap the richest harvest of species.

Mosses, in many instances, are limited to rocks and soils of the same mineral character; their limits of distribution, and of the rocks and soils possessing such character being identical. For instance, some are confined to limestone districts and chalk cliffs; a calcareous soil being indispensable to their existence. Others affect granite; numerous species luxuriate in soil formed by the disintegration of micaceous schist; while not a few are found growing chiefly on sandstone and clay. Some are found only on and near the seashore; others are confined to the beds of streams and cliffs moistened by the spray of cascades, where, however impetuous the torrent may be, they cling tenaciously to the rocks and form carpets of greenest verdure for the white, glistening feet of the descending waters. Some are restricted exclusively to trees whose trunks and boughs they clasp like emerald bracelets; others lead a lonely, hermit-like existence in the dim moist caves and crevices of rocks, where they are discovered only by the glistening of a stray adventurous sunbeam on the drops of dew trembling upon their shining golden leaves.

Mosses are sometimes found in an isolated state as single individuals, but they are far oftener found in a social condition. It is a peculiarity of the family to grow in tufts or clusters, the appearance of which is always distinct and well-marked in different species, and often affords a specific character. This disposition to grow together, which is exhibited in no other plants so strongly, redeems them from the insignificance of their individual state, and enables them to modify in many places the appearance of the general landscape. As social plants they often cover vast districts of land. Along with the lichens they give a verdant appearance to the desert steppes of Northern Europe, Asia, and America. Mixed with grass they luxuriate in parks, lawns, and meadows, particularly in moist, low-lying situations. They spread in large patches over the ground in woods and forests; and at a certain elevation on mountain ranges they take exclusive possession of the soil, forming immense beds into which the foot sinks up to the ankles at every step, bleached on the surface by the sunshine and rain, blackened here and there by dissolving wreaths of snow which lie upon them through all the summer months, and gradually decomposing underneath into black vegetable mould.

The plants whose peculiarities have been described in the preceding pages are called Urn Mosses, their fructification being urn-shaped, furnished with teeth and closed with a lid. There is another large class called Scale-Mosses, so closely allied to the true mosses that they are frequently confounded even by an educated eye. There are upward of a hundred species of scale mosses indigenous to Great Britain and Ireland, some of which are so small as to be scarcely visible and others much larger than any of the true mosses. With the exception of a few prominent species, which are found in every moist wood and on every shady rock, they are somewhat local and limited in their distribution, many of them being remarkably rare and confined to remote and isolated localities. The greatest number of species occurs in the tropics; and nowhere do they luxuriate so much as in the dark woods and mountain ravines of New Zealand. Some of them grow in the bleakest spots in the world, and are to be found even at a higher altitude than the urn-mosses on the great mountain ranges of the globe. They form the faintest tint of green on the edges of glaciers and on the bare, storm-seamed ridges of the Alps and Andes, where not a tuft of moss or a trace of other vegetation can be seen; and this almost imperceptible film of verdure, when cleansed from the earth and moistened with water, presents under the microscope the most beautiful appearance.

The peculiarities of these plants are so remarkable and interesting that they deserve more than a passing notice. As a rule, to which, however, there are a good many exceptions, they do not grow upright in tufts like the mosses, but have a flat, creeping, lichen-like habit, spreading over rocks and trees in closely applied circles which radiate from a common centre. The whole typical plant is like a series or necklace of roundish, flat, imbricated scales, several of which branch from a common point in the middle. The leaves, unlike those of the mosses, are entirely destitute of a central nerve, for what is called the nervure in the membraneous or leafy species is nothing more than the stalk itself on the edges of which the leaves are fastened together in such a manner as to form apparently a continuous whole.

The Hepaticæ, or scale-mosses, may be divided into two groups, consisting of those species in which the vegetation is frondose, that is, in which leaf and stem are confounded, and of those in which the vegetation is foliaceous, that is, in which leaves and stem are distinct.

The most interesting of all the frondose group of scale-mosses is the common Marchantia or Liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha). It is very common, creeping in large, dark-green patches over rocks in very moist and shady situations, such as the banks of a densely wooded stream in a deep, narrow glen, or the sides of rivers and fountains. It may often be seen also on the moist walls of hothouses and in the pots and tubs. It adheres closely to rocks, which it sometimes completely covers with its imbricated fronds by the numerous white, downy radicles with which the under surface is covered.

The second or foliaceous group of scale-mosses, in which the leaves and stem are distinct, is called Jungermanniæ, and contains by far the largest number of species and the richest variety of form and color. On either side of the thread-like stem arise in a more or less oblique position the membraneous overlapping leaves; while the fruit-vessel springs from the end of the stem, and is produced upon little silvery foot-stalks. It bursts into four valves, and when fully expanded spreads out into the form of a cross. There is a class of plants whose external appearance and mode of growth would indicate that they belong to the tribe under review, but whose structure and functions are so different that they are commonly supposed to bear a closer analogy to the ferns. They occupy an intermediate position, and form a connecting link between ferns and mosses; I allude to the Lycopods, or club-mosses. They are usually found in bleak, bare, exposed situations in all parts of the world, and sometimes attain a large size; forsaking the creeping habit peculiar to the family, and becoming slightly arborescent in tropical countries, particularly New Zealand, rivaling in rank luxuriance the smaller shrubs of the forest.

The club-mosses are all very graceful and beautiful plants. The Spanish moss (Lycopodium denticulatum) is a great ornament to conservatories and hothouses, where it conceals with its luxuriant drapery the mould in the pots, and keeps the roots of the plants moist. Nothing can be lovelier or more elegant than a basket of orchids in full flower, with clusters of this moss in careless grace from its sides. Lycopods may be said to present the highest type of cryptogamic vegetation, the highest limit capable of being reached by flowerless plants.

The first pages of the earth’s history reveal to us very extraordinary facts with relation to members and allies of the moss tribe. The club-mosses, in particular, at a former period, seem to have played a more important part, or to have found conditions more suitable to their luxuriant development than is the case at the present day. The two or three hundred species at present existing are the mere remnant of a once magnificent group. Some of them are stated to have formed lofty trees eighty feet high, with a proportionate diameter of trunk. They are among the most ancient of all plants. The oldest land-plant yet known is supposed to be a species of lycopodium closely resembling the common species of the moors. In the upper beds of the Upper Silurian rocks they are almost the only terrestrial plants yet found. In the lower Old Red Sandstone they also abounded; while they occupied a considerable space in the Oolite vegetation. But it is in the Coal-measures that they seem to have attained their utmost size and luxuriance, sigillaria, lepidodendron, etc., being now considered by competent botanists to be highly developed lycopodia. Along with ferns they covered the whole earth from Melville Island in the Arctic regions to the Ultima Thule of the Southern Ocean, with rank majestic forests of a uniform dull, green hue.

EUROPEAN SEA-WEEDS
--P. MARTIN DUNCAN

The zones of life are (1) the littoral zone, or tract between tide-marks; (2) the laminarian zone, from low water to fifteen fathoms; (3) the coralline zone, from low water to fifteen fathoms. Then come other zones leading to the great depths.

The broad-leaved tangles live in the laminarian zone, and it is called so from their Latin name, and therefore they limit the plants and animals of the shore, seaward.

It has been noticed that the animals and plants of the shores of our coasts are not the same everywhere, and that in certain parts some peculiar kinds are to be found. This is produced by climate, the nature of the sediment on the shore, the geological nature of the coast-line and inland parts, and the mineralogy of the district. And with regard to this last, it may be noticed, that where the rocks contain lime, or limestone and chalk, there certain shell-fish and corallines abound; but where this mineral does not exist, there they are comparatively or entirely absent. The British Islands, extending to the north and south, and being washed by the North Sea, the Atlantic, the German Ocean, and the Channel seas, come within the limits of certain natural history provinces. One is called the Boreal, and it extends across the Atlantic from Nova Scotia and Massachusetts to Ireland, the Faroe Islands, and Shetland Islands, and along the coast of Norway. That is to say, there are marine animals and plants which are found on the American, Irish, Scottish, and Norwegian shores, and which are either of the same kind or species, or of the same genus or group.

The next province is the Celtic, and it includes the coasts of England, Scotland, Denmark, southern Sweden, and the Baltic, and all these places have animals of the shore and other zones in common. The Channel Islands and parts of British south coasts come within range of another province, called the Lusitanian, which is that of the west coasts of France, Spain, and of the islands off the coast of Africa. The Celtic province is that to which most of the British coasts belong; and it is a subject of great interest to know that many of the kinds of shelly mollusca, which are now living, lived in the last geological ages, and their remains are found fossil; so that the condition of the coast-lines and shores and a part of the assemblage of animals and plants now living on them have a remote ancestry.

It is by no means easy to say where the seashore begins landward. It may be limited by cliffs and mountain-ground, so that there is but little shore, and the tide-water then comes up the sides of the cliff; and it may reach for miles inland, among salt marshes, the ditches of which have salt water and marine animals and plants in them. Again, even when the shore is perfectly limited inland, there are proofs that the sea is near, long before it is reached. Trees usually get scarce, and often those which are seen are much gnarled and bent and covered with lichens. A new set of flowering plants is noticed, and the old favorites of the meadow and wood are absent; and grasses, reeds, rushes, and many singular plants straggle on the sand and pebbles, out of the range of the tide, but within that of the spray sent in by a high wind. Common observation has enabled even the most unscientific collectors of plants to recognize what may be called a maritime, coast, or shore flora, just as they can distinguish a marsh, mountain, or wood flora beyond the range of the sea. A flora is the name for all the plants of a district, and it has been found that the seaside and seashore floras of these islands are very rich in kinds. Indeed, there are many little local floras included in the great seaside one, for the landscape, the nature of the rocks, and the vegetation of the shore, differ greatly in different parts. Each particular landscape by the sea, and every kind of soil there, has its little set of peculiar plants, some liking limestone, others clay, many rejoicing in sand, and some even finding nourishment among the highest pebbles.

Hence, on walking round British coasts, the plants, as a whole, will differ from those found inland, and at every turn or change of rock and scenery new kinds appear. But many of the inland plants do go down far to the seaside, and the art of gardening and all sorts of accidents have dispersed many plants which originally were not dwellers near the sea; and, on the contrary, they have also removed seaside plants, like sea-kale and asparagus, inland and into our gardens. In many places, however, and where the sea comes up very close, the inland plants are not found. There is a very remarkable thing about this seashore and seaside flora, and it is this, that nearly all the important groups, families, or genera of inland plants have a kind or two in it, and that there are few extraordinary novelties which would enable us to say that such a set of plants was destined for the seaside. Thus the pod-bearing order, which contains the pea, bean, clover, and such plants, has many species which are only found near the sea. The toothed medick (Medicago denticulatus), and the common melilot, love sand and gravel near the sea; the star clover lives on a shingly beach near Shoreham; while two kinds of the genus lotus live on dry places, two being found near the sea in Devon and Cornwall. There is a vetch, with a pale purple flower, on the pebbly beach of Weymouth, and another of a sulphur-color likes such situations. Even the poppy order has a kind with large golden-yellow flowers, with seed-cases from 6 to 12 inches long, living on sandy seashores; and this “horned poppy” has a very interesting companion, for a poppy with a bluish-white flower with a violet spot lives in the fens and on sandy ground near the sea, and it is the kind which yields opium. The cruciferous plants, of which the wall-flower, the rocket, cabbage, mustard, etc., are examples, are well and interestingly represented at the sea. There is a sea-stock living on the sandy seacoasts of Wales, Cornwall, and Jersey. The wild cabbage, the parent of all domestic cabbages, lives on cliffs by the sea; a wild mustard is at St. Aubin’s Bay, Jersey; a white draba, not very unlike the common whitlow grass, is on sandhills by the sea in Islay. The scurvy grasses are all found on seashores, and constitute a shore group. Finally, there are the purple sea-rocket and sea-kale, loving sandy shores, and there is a rare wild sea-radish. Among other well-known inland orders of plants, such as the violets, there is a rare one with its flowers wholly yellow, or yellow with the upper part purple, living on sands by the sea. Of another order, the tamarisk may be seen close to the waves on the Essex coast; even the pink tribe has a sea bladder-campion, an alsine, and a cerastium. Again, the tree mallow lives on rocks by the sea. The rose tribe are certainly not lovers of the seashore, but there is one kind belonging to the whitethorn tribe (Cotoneaster) which ornaments the rocks of the Great Orme’s Head, in Carnarvonshire; and a solitary kind of the thick-leaved plants, a sedum, lives there also, loving the limestone soil. The Corrigiola littoralis of the southwest of England has white-stalked flowers. The sea-holly, with its blue flowers in a head or umbel, lives on sandy seashores; the wild fennel, the Scottish lovage, and the fleshy-leaved, whitish-flowered samphire love rocks by the sea. The sea-carrot lives on the southwestern coasts.