AO THE SPHAGNACE OR PEAT-MOSSES OF 
Stems 6-12 in. high, simple or bipartite, robust, reddish 
brown ; cells of the peripheral layers strongly incrassate, brownish 
red ; cuticular cells in 3-4 strata, the innermost being the largest, 
the external rectangular, fibrose, and with several foramina. Stem 
leaves reflexed, small, lingulate-spathulate, very slightly fimbriate 
at the rounded apex ; cells all smaller and narrower than in Spf. 
fapillosum, the basal hyaline ; fibres and pores usually absent. 
Ramuli 4-5 in a fascicle, 2-3 divergent, arcuate, turgid, acute 
and attenuated at apex, the others pendent, attenuated, appressed 
to stem; cuticular cells densely fibrose, rectangular, foraminate, 
without any mixture of retort cells. 
Leaves of divergent branches dense, soft, ovate, deeply concave, 
more prolonged and a little recurved at apex, which does not differ 
in colour from the rest of the leaf, and is also less cucullate, more 
entire and less serrulate than in Sh. papellosum; when dry the 
margins are often distinctly undulated. Cells much smaller, the 
hyaline internally never papillose on the periphery, the chloro- 
phyllose subtrigono-ovate, and somewhat nearer to the concave 
margin of the section. 
Perichetial bracts laxer, less cucullate and plicate, rounded 
obtuse at apex; cells very small in centre of bract, all the lower 
uniform prosenchymatico-rectangular, with several rows of normal 
hyaline ones at margin, the upper part bordered by a series of 
very long narrow cells. 
Spores ochraceous. Male plants with short, ochraceous, purplish 
or olivaceous amentula placed in the coma; the bracts cochleari- 
concave, resembling the branch leaves in structure. 
Has.—Deep bogs and turbaries in the lowlands. Frequent throughout Europe 
and N. America. Fr. July. 
This species is the type of Linnzus’s S#h. palustre, and 
Lindberg retains the same appellation for it; but since Linnzeus 
referred all the Sphagna to it, I prefer to use the name by which 
it was first distinguished as a separate species. 
This peat-moss is very variable in size and colour, and sometimes 
forms beds of great extent, free from admixture with other species, 
but occasionally it may be found growing intermixed with Spf. 
papillosum, each retaining its distinctive characters. It may 
generally be distinguished from the latter species by its softer and 
more attenuated branches, with the leaves of thinner texture, with 
