For June, 1922 



183 



The Plants of Marsh and Moor 



WILLARD N. CLUTE 



PLANTS, like people, are most interesting when they 

 have done something out of the ordinary. The 

 common plants of our fields and woods lead a some- 

 what prosaic existence and do not attract particular at- 

 tention, but when a species has adopted some unusual 

 device to conserve its water supply, to get up to the 

 light, to distribute its seeds, to avoid too much water, or 

 what not. it at once becomes distinguished from its fel- 

 lows and an object of curiosity. So important is water 

 in influencing plant growth that those species which 

 have to contend with conditions in which there is too 

 much or too little moisture have unusually strong claims 

 to our attention. The desert plants are of perennial in- 

 terest but many species at the other end of the list, which 

 are rooted in mud or immersed in water, are scarcely 

 less attractive. 



When we examine the water plants, however, we find 

 that they are by no means alike in their structure or 

 physical requirements ; in fact, there is probably no other 

 large assemblage of plants in which the lines defining 

 the component groups are more sharply drawn. As a 

 good illustration, take the case of the pitcher plant. 

 Everybody knows that this plant grows in wet places, 

 but with no more information than this as a guide, one 

 might search for months without finding a specimen. 

 The plant grows only in a certain kind of wet place and 

 it is useless to look for it elsewhere. For this reason it 

 is often entirely absent from large areas. But when the 

 pitcher plant is once found, there is certain to be found 

 with it a number of other peculiar plants which are its 

 constant companions. Together they make up an asso- 

 ciation which is always characteristic of certain soils. 



The plant groups that inhabit our wet lands are so 

 conspicuous that the common people, without any special 

 knowledge of botany, have distinguished and named the 

 principal forms. The words bog, fen, moor, swamp, 

 and marsh carry with them definite ideas of vegetation 

 and each suggests a difl:"erent phase of it. The marsh 

 may be said to be the progenitor of all the others. It 

 might be defined as an area that is covered with water 

 for the greater part of the year. Naturally it has fewer 

 species than drier regions, but such forms as find it 

 habitable often occur in immense numbers. Among 

 familiar examples are cat-tails, bulrushes, water arums, 

 pickerel weed, arrow-heads, and coarse sedges. Little 

 iDy little the marshes fill up, partly with their own plant 

 remains and partly by particles of soil brought in by the 

 rains or blown in by the wind. They then become swamps 

 and ultimately meadows, but not without several changes 

 of plants by the way, in which may be found lilies, 

 orchids, iris^ skunk's-'cabbage, marsh-marigold, boneset, 

 Joe pye-weed, asters and a host of sedges and grasses. 



The marsh, however, does not always become a swamp. 

 Sometimes the vegetation it produces accumulates beneath 

 the water and slowly turns to a brownish mass known as 

 peat. LTnder such circumstances we are likely to call it a 

 peat-bog, but there are various types of peat-bog as the 

 plant covering of such areas readily shows. If the soil 

 water happens to be alkaline or neutral, the vegetation 

 will resemble that of the ordinary swamp. In this coun- 

 try we do not have a distinctive word for such an area, 

 but in England it is known as a fen. The fen is most 

 frequentlv found near the mouths of rivers where for 

 any reason the flow of water is obstructed. When cleared 

 and drained the fens are among the most productive 

 of soils. 



When the soil water in the bog happens to be acid, a 

 very different, and in many respects remarkable, flora 

 appears. The acid in the water renders absorption diffi- 

 cult and we have what is essentially a desert flora in the 

 midst of water. This is the home of the pitcher-plant, 

 the sundew, the bladderwort, the butterwort and other 

 insect-catching plants. Cranberry vines cover large areas, 

 the buck-bean, the cotton grass, the bog ferns, and the 

 marsh cinquefoil grow in the standing water, lady-slip- 

 pers, calopogons, arethusas, and other rare orchids rise 

 from the mossy hummocks and the huckleberry, marsh 

 rosemary, leather-leaf and numerous other heaths form 

 dense thickets. In the more open places the character- 

 istic bog-moss, known as Sphagnum or peat moss, 

 cover the surface for long distances to the exclusion of 

 everything else. For this reason, such places in Scotland 

 are often known as "mosses." The moss is the most 

 important of the peat-forming plants since it has the 

 ability to grow at the tip though decaying below. The 

 leaf structure is of such a character as to allow it to ab- 

 sorb much water, several times more, in fact, than the 

 best absorbent cotton can take up. Sphagnum, because 

 of its absorbent properties, was largely used for surgical 

 dressings during the war and it is the material so com- 

 monly used by florists for packing. 



In Europe the acid type of bog is often called a moor 

 to distinguish it from the alkaline fen. The moor so fre- 

 quently mentioned in English literature, however, does 

 not always indicate a peat bog. There are drier areas 

 also underlaid with a kind of peat known as "upland 

 peat" which is acid in reaction and in which may be 

 found a number of the bog plants or their near relations. 

 These are also known as moors. Occasionally they are 

 called high moors to distinguish them from the real or 

 low moors. The high moors are densely populated with 

 species of heath and these long ago gave the name of 

 heath to the region and the name of heathen to the people 

 who inhabited it. 



WORK FOR THE MONTH IN THE GARDEN 



(Continued from page 180) 



attacks the foliage of the plants causing them to burn 

 brown and shrivel. If left alone the slug worm will de- 

 nude the bushes, and in any case it is very disfiguring 

 and becomes a severe check on the growth. It is often 

 active before preventive measures are taken as it is at 

 first difficult to detect mitil the foliage shows the w^ork 

 of the pest. Arsenate of lead, O. K. Spray, or a nicotine 

 wash will check it. and these also take care of green fly 

 at the same time. 



Keep the privet hedges well sheared and edge up gar- 

 den and lawn paths and drives. Give cobble gutters and 

 weedv drives a dressing of weed killer. This is best ap- 

 plied after some rain as it is then more effective than 

 when applied in dry sunny weather for it evaporates 

 quicklv and does not then penetrate the roots so well and 

 therefore the effects are not so lasting. 



The man who thinks he has done everything he can do. 

 has merely stopped thinking. He is what might be called 

 "up and out," and excepting that he has more money, his 

 case is not really very different from that of the man who 

 is "down and out." — American Magazine. 



