fflGHER PLANTS 



Fig. 56. — I, Plant of Hygrohypnum ochraceum; 2, 

 leaf arrangement of same. (Grout. From Bry. 

 Eur.) 



Sphagnums or Peat Mosses — Sphagnacece 



Peat moss, Sphagnum. — The sphagnums are pale colored 

 green or pink tinged mosses which grow in big cushiony beds, 

 in bogs and marshes. These wet yielding tussocks are made 

 up of the long closely packed plants, their lower ends brown 

 and dead, their stems and rosette-like heads pale green and 

 leafy. This appearance results from their habit of growing 

 at the tips and dying off below. 



Their leaves closely overlap each other (Fig. 57). Broad 

 spoon-shaped leaves and thick branches distinguish a num- 

 ber of species called the spoon-leaved peat mosses ; those with 

 narrow pointed leaves and slender branches are the acute- 

 leaved peat mosses. Separate species within these groups 

 are very difficult to distinguish. 



All of them are remarkable for their power of absorbing 

 water and microscopic examination shows that certain of 

 their cells, narrow ones but normal in their supply of proto- 

 plasm, and chlorophyll, are surrounded by large thin- walled 

 cells which have entirely lost their protoplasm. The walls 



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