The English flora - SeaweedAfrica

CLASS XXIV.
CRYPTOGAMIA continued.
Order II. Musci. Linn. Mosses.
Anthers concealed among
Fructification, so called, of 2 kinds ;
the leaves ; and Capsules covered, in an early stage, with a
calyptra .which bursts transversely and regularly at the base,
and rises up with the mostly pedunculated and operculated capsule.
The operculum, or lid, deciduous in most instances. Mouth
of the capsule naked or furnished with a single or double fringe
or peristome ; the teeth or cilia in each row 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64.
The seeds surround a columella, are enclosed in a membranous
bag, and not accompanied by spiral filaments.— Plants of
small stature, of a more or less compactly cellular texture,
readily reviving, after being dry, by the application of moisture,
bearing leaves which are very rarely, indeed, divided, often
marked with a central nerve or costa, entire or toothed or serrated
at the margin Among all the plants of the Class Crypt og a mi a,
no Order, perhaps, presents a more varied and exquisitely
beautiful structure than the Mosses; whether we consider their
foliage, their capsules, or the delicate single or double fringe
which surrounds the mouth of the latter. They are mostly in
perfection in the winter months, and no part of the globe appearto
be entirely destitute of them. Their maximum, however,
doubtless exi>N in the temperate and cold climate*.; where they
invest rocks and trees, especially in a northern exposure, to a considerable
extent, "affording," says Linnaeus, "a harbour to an
immense number of insects, protecting them, lest they should !>••
destroyed by tie' frosts of winter, or l»e parched by the heats
of summer, or withered by the vicissitudes of spring, or decayed
by the damps of autumn :"— so that nothing, we may be assured,
not even the minutest vegetable, is made in vain.