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of our lofty ranges. The beautiful Andreza Wilsoni may 
yet be discovered for Tasmania, and this would indeed be a 
reward forall the fatigue endured by the young botanist i in 
search of new species. 
SuUB-ORDER 2. SpHAGNACE®. Bog Mosses. 
Genus 2. Sphagnum. 
The name of this genus, the only genus in the Sub-order, 
was used by Pliny to designate the lemon-coloured tufts of 
Usnea (Lichen) that mantled the trunks and branches of 
trees in Italian forests, a growth by no means unfamiliar to 
us in Tasmania at the present day. According to Bridel, 
Dillenius first gave this name to the bog mosses, and 
Linneeus and Hedwig perpetuated it. Sphagnum may be 
found all the world over; in Lapland, the careful mother 
gathers and weaves the snowy tufts into a comfortable bed 
for her baby, it is so soft and spongy, so beautiful and pure, 
and when lined with eider down as it often is, it is a 
comfortable and cosy nest for the as vet unhardened 
inhabitant of that bitterly coid country. 
The Sphagnum bogs cover extensive areas in Great Britain, 
and one of the greatest difficulties that George Stephenson 
had to encounter in making the Lancashire and Yorkshire 
Railway was the great bog known as Chat Moss. The 
Sphagnum plants in that bog reach down to an enormous 
depth. 
When the Sphagnum bog becomes filled up and consolidated 
it forms peat, a substance as useful to the Skye-crofter or 
to the isolated inhabitants of England, Ireland, and Wales as 
wood or coal is to the Hobartian. 
In the economy of nature the Sphagnum bog plays no un- 
important part; the waterlogged depression is its home, there 
it luxuriates and multiplies, levying new substance from the 
surrounding light and air; the depression in the fulness of 
time becomes filled up, and in its turn is ready to yield to the 
husbandman produce for his toil. There are seven species 
of this genus described in Flora Tasmaniz ; to these may be 
added other two species, viz: S. Nove Zealandie (Mitten), 
from Mitten’s recent catalogue, and S. Moss-manianum 
(C. Muller). A specimen of this last may be seen in Mr. 
Archer’s collection of mosses in the Royal Society’s possession, 
Patches of this moss may be found at the top of Mount 
Wellington and near the Springs. Mr. Abbott, of the Royal 
Society’s gardens obtains large quantities near Brown’s River ; 
itis so plentiful there that the carts back into the bogs 
almost to the depths of the wheels, and the sphagnum is 
forked into the cart as though it were hay, it is then sent 
away to fulfil some useful purpose. 
