12 



soil we shall find also, if it be fairly moist, a common liverwort, 

 Marchantia, growing sociably with the cord-moss, Funaria 

 hygrometrica with its reddish brown twisted seta. This twisting 

 of the seta is more or less common among many mosses but is 

 most pronounced in Funaria. In wet weather Funaria coils 

 up its seta like a spring and as the air becomes dry it untwists 

 with a snap, hurling the spores from the capsules to be scattered 

 far and wide.* 



Mossy Path on South Mountain is a more or less swampy 

 pine woods with the ground covered with several years' layers 

 of pine needles. This is a favorite haunt of the white or cushion 

 moss, Leucohryum glaucum. Its name fits it admirably, as it 

 grows packed together in cushion-like mats, with the older and 

 taller plants in the middle and the younger ones added gradually 

 to the circumference. In color it is pale green when the environ- 

 ment is favorable as to moisture. It is almost white when it 

 finds itself in quite dry places. It fruits infrequently except 

 in very wet surroundings. 



Of the 248 species of peat moss growing in abundant supplies 

 nearly throughout the world, the beginner will be proud to 

 identify three, found in swampy spots in the Catskills. It is the 

 moss that forms the peat bogs of Ireland and grows in great quan- 

 tities in the United States. The great power and capacity of peat 

 moss for absorbing moisture makes it valuable in preventing floods. 

 The plants keep growing from the top and die below, and are saved 

 from utter decay and disintegration by some peculiar preservative 

 quality in the ooze in which they grow. In color the peat mosses 

 are grayish green, occasionally bright green or reddish-brown, and 

 Sphagnum acutifolium is sometimes pinkish at the top. The 

 spores are freed from the capsule by a miniature explosion which 

 is explained in different ways but which is sure to occur only 

 when the spores are matured and the weather conditions favor- 

 ably dry. The three species best known and most easily iden- 

 tified are named for the leaf peculiarities. Sphagnum acutifolium 



* This is true also in Tetraphis (see Fig. 2, J and K). In Dicranaceae, Fissiden- 

 taceae, and Ceralodon the reverse is true, as the spores are released only in a moist 

 atmosphere. See Goebel, K., Organography of Plants 2: 163. 1905. — Ed. 



