THE SPHAGNACEvE OR PEAT-MOSSES 



OF 



EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 



LITERATURE OF THE GENUS SPHAGNUM. 



The name (T(f)ayuo<i was first used by the ancient botanists, Theo- 

 phrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny, to ind":ate certain species of 

 Salvia and Lichen; but as a genus of mosses Sphagnum was 

 established by Dillenius in his first work, Caiclogiis Plavtarum 

 sponte circa Gissam nasccntium (1719), though not in the restricted 

 sense as now understood, since he included in it various other 

 mosses which had no evident pedicels, as Grimmia apocarpa, 

 Hedvjigia ciliata, Cryphcea, &c. 



Before his time, however, Lobel had figured a true species — 

 6". acutifolium — in his Icones Stirpium, ii, p. 242 (1591), under the 

 name of Muscus terrestris vulgaris ; and a century later Plukenet 

 figured 6*. cymbi/olium, in his Phytographia, as Muscus palustris 

 in ericetis nascens floridtis, and Vaillant, in his Dotanicon Parisiense 

 (1727), also gives figures of the same. 



Dillenius, in the third edition of Ray's Synopsis Stirpium 

 Britatmicarum (1724), adopts the genus, with the observation, 

 " This moss is like none of the terrestrial, but has a peculiar aspect, 

 nor is it produced anywhere else but in bogs and marshes." In 

 his celebrated Historia Muscorum (1741) he introduced sixteen 

 species of Sphajnnm, but the only o-enuine are 6^. palustre molle 

 de/lexum, squamis cymbiformibus = S. cymbi/olium, and S. paluf'ye 

 molle dejlcxum, squamis capillaceis with a var. ^Jluitans = 6". acuti- 

 folitcm + cuspidatum. 



LiNN^us, in his Species Plantarmn (1753), still retained 

 Cryphcea heteromalla as Sphagnum arborctcm, and recognized only 



