460 Minnesota Plant Life. 



of pcat-1)oiis are llie peat-mosses, the most abundant and in 

 some respects the most remarkable of all the mosses. A con- 

 siderable number of different species occur in Minnesota. 

 They are extreme! v spongy and contain a lari;e amount of 

 water in special cells of their leaves and stems. Besides the 

 peat-mosses a number of other mosses will be found in peat- 

 bogs, with a variet}- of lixcrworts. llcre, too, is the fa\'orite 

 home of many sedges, such as the cotton-grasses, of many grasses 

 and lilies, of rushes and of orchids. Heaths are a marked fea- 

 ture of peat-bogs and almost all the ^^linnesota N'arieties are to 

 be looked for in such localities, where one finds the Labrador 

 tea, the Kahiiias, the rosemarys, the cranberries, the snow- 

 berries, the leatherleafs and the bilberries. ]\Iingled with them 

 are a numl)er of other peat-bog-dwelling plants l)elonging 

 to various families. Here one will find the sundews and 

 pitcher-plants, the dogwoods, brambles and sweet-ferns, the 

 myrtle-leafed willow, the tag-alder and the crowberry. Espe- 

 cially distinctive of such areas are spruces and tamaracks and 

 these are the most characteristic trees of peat-bogs in the Min- 

 nesota region. They are often very much dwarfed b}- the 

 cold water and by the low percentages of mineral salts which 

 tliese waters contain. Especially when growing in the wet 

 region of the bog are the trees diminutixe: and spruce trees 

 75 years old and but little over an inch and a half in diameter 

 have been found in Minnesota peat-bogs. 



It is probably on account of the low nitrogenous content of 

 the water that carnivorous plants, such as the pitcher-plant and 

 sundews, ha\ e developed particularly in peat-bogs. They are 

 able by their insect-catching habits to supply, from the bodies 

 of their \ictinis. nitrogen to compensate for the >cantiness of 

 this element in the soil. 



Most of the species in peat-bogs are ])crennial. ( )n account 

 of the o])en, meadow-like character of txpical peat-bogs the 

 snow accumulates in hea\y sheets and this w ill perhaps account 

 to some extent for the prevalence of prostrate shrubs like the 

 heaths. Xo doubt also the prostrate habit is resultant from 

 the necessitv for ^low evaporation. Snicc tiie heaths do not 

 lift their leaxes into the air 011 erect shoots so abundantly as 

 do other kinds of >hnd)>, the\ axoid lh;U agitation by the wind 

 which would ])roniote e\ ajioration. 



