Mosses

lowly green flowerless plants often carpeting the ground or upholstering old logs. They have no true roots. Mosses may be known by tiny spore cases rising like street lamps from the tip of a leafy stem. The spore case or capsule is covered with a thin lid which flies off at maturity, leaving a fringe-guarded orifice, from which the spores escape. The gray sphagnum, a water-holding moss of evergreen swamps is much used by nurserymen for packing the roots of plants in shipment. Club mosses are ground pine, which see, and the "mosses" on trees are very likely lichens. Spanish moss is not a true moss, but a flowering parasite. Mosses grow in a great variety of situations. They play an important part in the world. Moss is one of the earliest forms of vegetation to take possession of newly formed soil, and are able to exist where grasses are impossible. They form a rich soil and pave the way for higher plants. Bog-moss or sphagnum forms the great peat beds of both continents. They serve an important end in the control of floods. A bed of moss retains water like a sponge and serves to retard the formation of torrents. There are about 5,000 species of mosses.