万物简史 第508期:丰富多彩的生命(4)
时间：2019-01-16 07:08:47
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（单词翻译）
When Emerson poetically1 noted2 that mosses4 favor the north sides of trees ("The moss3 upon the forest bark, was pole-star when the night was dark") 当埃默森富有诗意地谈到苔藓喜欢生长在树木的北侧的时候（“在漆黑的夜晚，树干上的苔藓就是北斗星”），
he really meant
lichens5, for in the nineteenth century mosses and lichens weren't
distinguished6. 他指的其实是地衣，因为苔藓和地衣在19世纪是不分的。
True mosses aren't actually
fussy7 about where they grow, so they are no good as natural compasses. 真正的苔藓实际上对生长的地方并不挑剔，因此它们不能充当天然的指北针。
In fact, mosses aren't actually much good for anything. 实际上，苔藓什么也充当不了。
"Perhaps no great group of plants has so few uses, commercial or economic, as the mosses," wrote Henry S. Conard, “也许哪一大群植物也不像苔藓那样几乎毫无用处，无论在商业上还是在经济上。”亨利·S·科纳德写道。
perhaps just a touch sadly, in How to Know the Mosses and Liverworts, 这话是在《怎么识别苔藓和叶苔》一书中说的，里面不无心酸的味道。
published in 1956 and still to be found on many library shelves as almost the only attempt to popularize the subject. 该书于1956年出版，现在许多图书馆的书架上仍找得到，几乎是试图普及这个课题的惟一作品。
They are, however,
prolific8. 然而，苔藓是一种繁殖力很强的植物。
Even with lichens removed, bryophytes is a busy realm, with over ten thousand species contained within some seven hundred genera. 即使不算地衣，苔藓仍是个兴旺的王国，大约有700个属，1万多个种。
The plump and stately Moss
Flora9 of Britain and Ireland by A. J. E. Smith runs to seven hundred pages, A.J.E.史密斯写的那本厚厚的《英国和爱尔兰的苔藓群》长达700页，
and Britain and Ireland are by no means outstandingly mossy places. 但英国和爱尔兰绝不是突出的苔藓之乡。
"The tropics are where you find the variety," Len Ellis told me. “到了热带你才会知道苔藓之繁多。”莱恩·埃利斯对我说。
A quiet, spare man, he has been at the Natural History Museum for twenty-seven years and curator of the department since 1990. 他是个文静而话语不多的入，在自然史博物馆已经干了27年，从l990年以来一直担任这个部门的主任。”
"You can go out into a place like the rain forests of Malaysia and find new varieties with relative ease. 要是你去比如马来西亚的雨林，你很容易发现新的物种。
I did that myself not long ago. 不久以前我自己也去过。
I looked down and there was a species that had never been recorded." 我往下一看，就看到一个从来没有记录的物种。
So we don't know how many species are still to be discovered? “因此，我们不知道还有多少个物种没有被发现？”
Oh, no. No idea. “哦，没错儿。大家都心里没有数。”
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