The American Botanist 



VOL. XXI JOLIET, ILL., NOVEMBER, 1915 No. 4 



J^e is happiest who hath power 

 Zjo gather wisdom from a flower 

 ^nd wake his heart in every hour 

 7jo pleasant gratitude, 



— Wordsworth. 



HEATHS AND HEATH PLANTS 



By Willard N. Clute. 



T N Old World song and story, the words heath and moor are 

 frequently used to denote certain stretches of wild unculti- 

 vated country but their usage in this respect is so varied that it is 

 probable that many persons have but a hazy idea of what either 

 a heath or a moor is like. The researches of the ecologist, 

 however, are rapidly giving these words a definite meaning, not 

 only to the plant student but to others as well. There are at 

 least four types of uncultivated or uncultivable land to which 

 man has given distinctive names. These are marsh, fen, moor, 

 and heath. When the terms are properly applied they indicate 

 very different types of country. 



The moor is what we, in America, are more likely to call a 

 peat bog, or sometimes merely a bog. It is always underlaid 

 with peat, the soil has an acid reaction and the vegetation it 

 supports is of a peculiar type in which plants like the sundew, 

 pitcher plant, buckbean, huckleberry, cranberry and other plants 

 which avoid lime, predominate. The marsh is a watery waste 

 without peat — what is commonly called a swamp. When such 



