PfiAT-MOSS. 255 



height of half a yard.* Take some of the little girl's brooms, 

 Esther; and we will examine the moss, more at our leisure, 

 when we return. 



ESTHER. 

 But the common peat moss (Sphagnum) is also very long. 



Under peculiar circumstances, it will attain a great extent, 

 it having been found by Dr. Greville, in a pool of water, a 

 foot and a half long.f The sphagnum is one of the most 

 abundantly diffused of all the mosses, and its whitish hue 

 (tinged however with red, when the water has dried up and left 

 it exposed to the action of the air and sun), makes its appear- 

 ance very remarkable and distinct from all other genera. All the 

 species are aquatics, and the sphagnum palustre, from its rapid 

 growth, and from its property of throwing up new shoots in 

 its upper part while the lower parts are decaying, is supposed 

 to constitute a considerable portion of the great bogs of the 

 North of Europe. In Alpine countries, most of the springs 

 take their origin in large marshy plains, covered with sphag- 

 num. Its softness, its cotton-like texture, its facility of ab- 

 sorbing moisture, and the ease with which it is procured, 

 render it fit to be applied to many purposes. The Lapland 

 women make great use of it, and it would form a soft and 

 delicate mattress or lining for the cradle of a child. ^ 



I think it has been always upon this moss, that we have 

 found the curious little sun-dew, (Drosera). 



MRS. F. 



Yes; and that still more singular plant of the same family, 

 Venus' fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula), with whose irritability 

 you must be all familiar, grows among the sphagnum; so does 

 also the purple Sarracenia, and many other plants which are 

 difficult of cultivation in our gardens. 



* SpreMgel. t Hooker's Muscologia Britannica. ^ Lamouroux 



