MOSSES, one of the orders of the class cryptogamia; which see, Botany Index.—The ancients took the moss of trees to be the effect of a disorder or discomposure of the texture of the bark; or at most a kind of little filaments arising from the bark: but the moderns find, by more accurate observation, that mosses are real distinct plants, whose seed, being extremely small, is enclosed in little capsules; which bursting of themselves, the seed is carried off by the winds; till, falling into the inequalities of the bark of trees, it is there stopped, takes root, and feeds at the expense of the tree, as mouldiness does on bread, &c.