Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/302

268 corals, crabs, and crustaceæ of different sorts. The stem is incrusted with corals and Flustrae, and often affords a point of attachment for the eggs of fish and molluscæ, besides being adorned with a growth of lesser algae, as mosses cling to the trunks of forest-trees. The leaves are often white from the myriads of Serpulae and other shells, and they harbour various predacious fish, besides yielding a place of retreat to the weaker species.

"The Mosses of the Falklands hardly merit notice, being very few in number, compared with what other Antarctic islands produce. The common Sphagnum, or bog-moss of Europe, is seen; but not so abundantly as the prevalence of peat and bog-earth might seem to infer: nor does it prove the same active agent in producing this kind of soil which it is in Scotland and Ireland. The numerous grasses, the Empetrum, the little myrtle, and some other flowering plants, take a greater share than Sphagnum in the formation of peat in the Falklands; and the soil so composed is perhaps of an equally antiseptic nature as that in the northern regions; for the leaves of some plants may be found uninjured in it at a considerable depth.

"The Ferns consist of very few species, though two of them, Lomaria alpina and L. Magellanica, both Fuegian plants, abound. The former is of small size, but often covers a considerable surface: the latter grows among rocks, and is sub-arborescent, its caudex forming a short stout stem,