154 Rankin : The Peat-Moors of Lonsdale. 



within the influence of the hard rising land, the agreement is not 

 maintained. 



Underlying all the diversity within the series of zones 

 between the open water and the Molinia swamp, there is at 

 least the common feature that the root-system of the 

 vegetation searches soil supplied with water, which either 

 immediately or but little remotely has been in contact with the 

 mineral rocks, and is therefore to some extent, supplied with 

 inorganic salts. Such a series of plant societies is grouped 

 under the comprehensive term of ' Swamp Moor.' Moors of this 

 type, when viewed from without, have a flat upper surface, 

 which gives occasion for the continental name of ' Flach-moor.' 

 Owing to the extensive clearings by man, restrictive or wholly 

 destructive, the swamp moor or flat-moor, as found in this 

 district on the lowlands, shows rarely the full succession 

 displayed in a typical development, but more generally only the 

 associations representing a few out of many phases. About 

 tarns the earlier zones are the most evident, and above filled- 

 up hollows, the latter associations, often in transition to the 

 associations of the heath-moors. 



The moor associations which have been long removed from 

 the state of open water, as the Molinia meadows well behind the 

 waters of lakes or over the drying-up tarn hollows, have had 

 opportunity by the increase in thickness of peat, steadily to 

 become raised above the water table within the soil, and thus 

 to become drier. This increasing dessication often favours the 

 growth of shrubs, as the alder, birch, and willow, but even more 

 so the growth of heath plants, which are less dependent than 

 swamp plants upon soil water with dissolved salts, and so quite 

 at home in a soil which is dependent for its moisture upon the 

 chance precipitation of rain. Such heath plants thrive upon or 

 between the tussocks of Molinia, and in the course of time 

 engulph them, forming a high layer independent of the water 

 level searched by the swamp associates. Bog-moss, Sphagnum, 

 Cotton sedge, Eriophornm vaginatum, and ericaceous plants, 

 as Calluna and Erica species, are among the first intruders, and 

 finally the conquerors. 



The moor resulting upon the growth of these heath plants 

 shows a much more restricted floral list than that of the pre- 

 ceding swamp moor. Very few species are held in common, and 

 even of these, as in the case of Molinia, there is the separation 

 into two distinct forms, expressive of the distinct groups of 



Naturalist, 



