6 5 8 



ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. II 



humates of alkalis in solution besides the humus acids ; the humates are less 

 plentiful in the water from meadow-moors because their humus acids form 

 insoluble compounds with lime. Although the differences in the flora of 

 high-moors and meadow-moors depend to a great extent on the dissimilar 

 amount of lime, yet the dissimilar chemical composition of the humus 

 substances also has, to all appearance, a not unimportant significance in this 

 respect. Many plants, otherwise indifferent as regards choice of soil, that 

 thrive on meadow-moors, are completely absent from high-moors, apparently 

 kept away by the great amount of humus salts in solution. Thus according 

 to Sendtner, thirty-three phanerogams that in other habitats are indifferent as 

 regards soil, in Bavaria occur on meadow-moors, but not on high-moors ; on 



Fig. 399. Sphagnum fim- 

 briatum. Branch. Natural 

 size. After W. P. Schimper. 



Fig. 400. Sphagnum cym- 

 bifolium. <7. Cells containing 

 chlorophyll. w. Water-cells 

 with thickenings, r 1 , on the 

 walls, and pores, /. Surface 

 view. From Strasburger's Text- 

 book of Botany. 



the other hand, there are only four phanerogams on high- moors that do not 

 belong to the flora of the meadow-moors. 



Sendtner excellently describes the dissimilar character of the vegetation 

 of the high-moors and meadow-moors of Bavaria, as follows: — 



'The difference in vegetation is sufficiently great to give, even at some distance, 

 an altered appearance to the landscape. The red carpet of Sphagnum, for the most 

 part overtopped by forests of the mountain pine (Pinus montana, var. uncinata), 

 hardly a foot high, characterizes the high-moors no less than the details ; while the 

 meadow-moors represent wide green expanses of meadow, which varies in tint with 

 the season, and in which the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), as a stunted tree, presents 

 a picture very different from that afforded by the mountain pine V 



1 Sendtner, op. cit., p. 626. 



