12 SPHAGNACE^. [Sphagnum. 



5-ranted, round, ovate, or lanceolate, very concave or even con- 

 volute. Inflorescence monoecious or dioscious. Male flowers 

 (antheridia) borne upon clavate and catkin-like generally colored 

 branches, solitary at the side of each leaf, globose or ovoid, 

 pedicellate. Female flowers {archegonicC) generally 3 or 4, at 

 first sessile in a bud-like involucre terminating a short branch, 

 one only perfecting fruit and forming a capsule, which is at 

 length raised upon a kind of pedicel {jpseudopodimn)^ formed 

 by the gradual elongation of the base {vaginule) and covered 

 by large perichsetial leaves. Capsule globose, operculate with a 

 convex or nearly flat lid, the orifice naked (without peristome 

 or annulus). Calyptra irregularly lacerate and adhering to the 

 vaginule. Spores of two kinds, tetrahedral macrospores, and 

 polyhedral microspores, the latter many times the smaller. 

 On gei-mination the macrospores first produce a thin jjrothal- 

 lium, either filamentose in water or expanded in a kind of net 

 work upon the ground, upon which leaf-buds are afterwards 

 formed. 



Like the Andre(zacem, the Sphar/nacecc differ much from the true 

 Mosses. In their mode of germination, the first evolution of the plant, 

 and the form of the antheridia, they are related to the caulescent Hepaticce. 

 The structure of the stem, the imperfect calyptra, the organization of the 

 capsule, and the two kinds of spores are without analogy among either 

 the true Mosses or the HepaticcB. The Order consists of only the follow- 

 ing genus. For more detailed descriptions and full synonymy reference 

 may be made to Schimper's Torfmoose, Braithwaite's Sphagnacece or 

 Peat-Mosses of Europe and North America, Lindberg's Enropas och 

 Nord Amerikas Hvitmossor, and Husnot's Sphagnologia Europcea. 



1. SPHAGNUM, Dill. (PI. I.) 

 Character that of the Order. 



§ 1. Acuta. Branch-leai^es erect: ducts forming part of the 

 concave up>per surface, triangular in cross-section, the por- 

 tion included hetioeen the utricles being icedge-form, the 

 free surface convex : stem-leaves large, bordered by nurroiri 

 and flexuous hyaline cells ; their utricles rarely fibrillose, 

 mostly empty. 



