EPPING FOREST
ITS MOSSES
" Beneath the birch with silver hark,
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scattered down the rock
And all is mossy there.''
Coleridge.
The majority of those who come to the Forest
confine their visits to the summer months, leaving
its glades comparatively deserted in what, to my
mind, are the two most beautiful periods of the
year—May, when the birches and beeches put on
their tender green, and again when, in the late
autumn, the same leaves turn to bronze and gold,
contrasting with the lustre of green moss and the
spotted beauties of the fungus family.
The mosses only begin to put forth their most
brilliant greens and feathered growth when other
vegetation is withered and dead, and it is in what
are generally known as the dull months that many
of them are in the most interesting stage to the
naturalist and collector—viz. in fruit. These
plants lend themselves more readily than any
other to the art of mounting and preserving, as
they retain their brilliancy of colour for many
years, and their delicacy and variety of form are
well shown on the mounting card. Mr. English
has furnished me with the following list of the more
important of the mosses which he has collected in
the Forest, with their localities. I append it for
the benefit of the numerous class of students who
make these plants the object of, and the excuse
for, winter rambles.