2 THE SPHAGNACE& OR PEAT-MOSSES OF 



one other species, which he named .S. palustre, with a var. /3, and 

 under this he included all the true species of the family. 



Ehrhart clearly defined the genus, and established as species 

 vS. cymbifolium, acutifolium, and cuspidalum, in the Hannoverisches 

 Magazin (1780), and Plantce Crypt. Exsicc. (1785). 



Hedwig, in his Fundamenta Muscorum (1782), characterized 

 the genus, and gave most beautiful figures of the fruit and 

 antheridia, the latter being then made known for the first time. 



Bridel described several species in the Muscologia Recentiorum 

 (1797), and in his Mantissa (1819) extends the number to fourteen, 

 six being European. 



Schwaegrichen, in Suppl. I. to Hedwig's Species Muscorum, 

 figures Sph. cuspidatum, compactum, and squarrosum. 



P. de Beauvois gives a good natural character of the genus 

 in a paper on Muscology, in Mdmoires de la Societe Linndenne, Paris, 

 1822, and notices the peculiar areolation of the leaves as serving 

 to distinguish them from all other mosses. 



N. von Esenbeck and Hornschucii, in the Bryologia Ger- 

 manica, vol. i. (1823), describe nine species of Sphagnum, but 

 two of these are only varieties ; and figures are given of thirteen 

 species and varieties. 



Bridel, in his last work, Bryologia Universa (1826), added 

 the natural characters of the genus to the description he had 

 previously given, and pointed out its distinctness from all others. 



J. Hegetschweiler contributed a paper, Revision des Genus 

 Sphagnum, to the Denkschriften der Schweizer Gesells. fiir gesam. 

 Naturwiss., Zurich, 1829, in which he looks upon the species of 

 Sphagnum as so variable, that he refers all the forms to a broad- 

 leaved and a narrow-leaved species, just as they were originally 

 placed by Dillenius. 



Furnrohr, in the Regensburg Botanische Zeitung for 1833, gave 

 a paper, Versuch einer Lebens- und Formgeschichte der Gattung 

 Sphagnum, but it is only a risumS of the work of previous writers. 



C. Muller, in his valuable Synopsis Muscorum Frondosorum 

 (1846), formed a tribe Sphagnacece, and gives full descriptions of 

 seventeen species, but speaks of the leaves having intercellular 

 ducts ; he also describes the cells as inanes or replctce, according 

 to the presence or absence of spiral threads, and uses this as an 

 important character in the distinction of species, though we now 

 know that really little stress can be laid upon it ; yet that this 



