THE SPHAGNACE& OR PEAT-MOSSES OF 



CHAPTER II. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



The plants constituting the family Sphagnacecz, and known as 

 Peat-mosses or Bog-mosses, have long attracted notice from the 

 ordinary observer by their peculiar aspect and habit, and have 

 equally interested the microscopist by the beauty of their tissues, 

 and exercised the botanist by the difficulty which attends their 

 correct determination ; the latter perhaps increased by the great 

 variability of some species, and the uncertainty of the characters 

 relied upon by various authors for the purpose of specific distinction. 



No group of plants is more clearly defined in structure, in 

 general family likeness, and in the localities in which they are 

 found, for all are essentially Bog-mosses ; yet as various true mosses 

 are equally inhabitants of bogs, e. g. various Hypna, Aulacomnium 

 palnstre, Paludella, Meesea, &c, I prefer to term them more 

 definitely Peat-mosses, since on them alone the first formation of 

 peat largely depends, and the name accords with that long recog- 

 nized by the Germans, whose Laubmoose or frondose mosses, 

 Tor/moose or Peat - mosses, and Lebermoose, Livermosses or 

 Hepaticae, thus form one great Muscal alliance. 



Few persons can have traversed our moorlands without having 

 had their attention attracted to the great masses of Sphagnum 

 which adorn their surface — now in dense cushions of lively red — 

 now covering some shallow pool with a vast sheet of light green, 

 inviting it may be by its bright colour, but woe betide the inex- 

 perienced collector who sets foot thereon, for the spongy mass 

 may be many feet in depth, and he may run the chance of never 

 reaching terra firma again. 



The plants always grow in this aggregated fashion, for the 

 stems are weak and fragile, and they thus afford each other 

 mutual support ; and this fragility requires us to deal gently with 

 our collections if we would have good herbarium specimens ; the 

 immense quantity of water they retain must be squeezed out 

 carefully, and not by roughly grasping the tufts in the hand, other- 



