ON THE 
BRITISH ‘SPECIES OF THE GENUS SPHAGNUM, 
BY 
MR. JOHN SIM. 
—0 foo —. 
THE Sphagna are bog-mosses which beautify our marshes and 
moorlands, and are a peculiar and interesting class of plants. 
To the utilitarian mind they are of interest as the principal pro- 
ducers of peat-mosses which supply fuel to so many households 
in rural districts ; to the microscopist the leaves, cortical cells, 
and organs of fructification yield objects of great beauty ; and 
to the common observer there is much to attract the eye and to 
interest the mind in the great variety of colour, from the deepest 
green or yellow to the darkest red or purple, and in the beauty 
and diversity of form, from the tiny stem with its fascicles of - 
_ drooping branches to the dense cushion-like masses, or the long 
straggling stems growing in the streamlets or filling up the 
shallow pools of the marshes. 
Scientific botanists find in the Sphagna many peculiarities. 
Unlike most plants they are not attached to their place of 
erowth by rootlets, nor is their nutriment drawn in by such, 
but part of each fascicle of branches is disposed of in a drooping 
manner, closely surrounding the stem. By these branches fluids 
are supposed to be carried upwards through the cortical cells to 
nourish the plant. Nor is their true place in the vegetable 
kingdom easily assigned to the Sphagna. They are now re- 
carded as standing between the Hepatic on the one hand and 
the true mosses on the other, though generally included among 
the latter in botanical systems ; but I think they are sufficiently 
distinct from both to form a family by themselves. ‘The great 
tendency to vary in form, and the absence of prominent charac- 
ters by which the species might be distinguished, has rendered 
the group very perplexing to students, hence authors have come 
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