96 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



All living matter consists in part of complex nitro- 

 genous carbon compounds called proteins, and it is 

 therefore imperative that living creatures obtain nitro- 

 gen supplies in their food. The difficulty on the high 

 moor is to get these supplies. There is abundance 

 in the peat and in the peaty water, but it is not in 

 available form. The nitrefying bacteria which usually 

 change nitrogenous substances in the soil into avail- 

 able form will not thrive on the moor. The nitrogen- 

 capturing bacteria which make tubercles on the roots 

 of leguminous plants and help them to thrive in poor 

 soil by somehow fixing the nitrogen so abundant in 

 the atmosphere appear to object to a peaty environ- 

 ment. Nor do earthworms thrive in peat. Pro- 

 fessor Bottomley has been trying of recent years to 

 cultivate a microbe that will make peat available as a 

 soil for plants. If that is accomplished it will be a 

 great achievement. 



But there is one kind of plant that thrives on the 

 high moor the plant that has made the moor what 

 it is : the Bog Moss, or Sphagnum. It grows in great 

 spongy cushions, which are always dying away below 

 into sphagnum peat, and rising higher in the centre. 

 Sometimes they die in the middle and grow bigger 

 and bigger round the circumference. The tendency 

 of the high moor as a whole is to become convex, and 

 it is to this bulging that the technical term refers. 



There are different kinds of Bog Moss, and the 

 colours are often varied, but all agree in their great 

 capacity for absorbing water. Enclosed by cells con- 

 taining the green chlorophyll there are water cham- 

 bers, usually stiffened with fibrous thickenings and 

 communicating with one another and with the 



