Peat moss

“ It is for this reason that a peat-moss is such a bad or rather an impossible soil. Neither roots nor bacteria can thrive in saturated peat; therefore the flora of a peat-moss is generally confined to the upper surface, where air and bacteria can reach the roots. Peat-mosses are also the home of insectivorous plants, which get their nitrogenous food from the insects which they catch. ”

“ The fogs and more steady low temperature of insular situation, which now prevail, not only induce that chemical change in dead and dying vegetables which forms peat-moss, and preserves this moss from decay, but also being too cool for the vegetation of the gramineæ, &c. tend only to promote the general spread of sphagni and other moss-generating plants, which, again, are almost the only plants that can vegetate on acrid moss-flow, as they draw little or nothing from below, and are nourished directly by the moisture and other fluids of the atmosphere. ”

“ Peat-bogs have in no way ceased to be formed, for at their surfaces the peat-moss grows afresh every year; and rushes, horse-tails, and reeds of all descriptions grow and thrive each year upon the ruins of their ancestors. The formation of such accumulations of decaying vegetation would only be possible where the physical conditions of the country allowed of an abundant rainfall, and depressions in the surface of the land to retain the moisture. ”

“ A little sphagnum moss placed on the top of the peat is beneficial to them, if it can be kept in a growing condition, as it maintains a nice moisture about the plant. If the moss should become decayed it must be removed, and some fresh living sphagnum applied. The plants will grow without the moss, but we prefer to use it. Avoid overpotting, which is often detrimental to them, for they do not require too much of the potting material about them; the pot should, in fact, be just large enough to hold the plant, and to admit a small quantity of the material being placed around it. ”

“ The soft and porous nature of dried peat moss, renders it very suitable for this purpose; but, in some instances, where a deficiency of peats has occurred, blocks of wood of the same size have been used with little disadvantage. As the smelting proceeds, the reduced lead, filtering down through all parts of the brouse into the hearth bottom, flows through the channel o, Fig. ”

“ The remains of plants are often so well-preserved in peat that their species can be easily determined; but in the northern parts of the world it is chiefly formed from certain kinds or species of bog-moss. These mosses grow in very wet places, and throw out new shoots from their upper parts, while their lower parts are decaying and forming peat, so that shallow pools are gradually changed into bogs. Moist peat is a decided and powerful antiseptic, as is shown in the preservation not only of ancient trees, leaves and fruits but of animal bodies. ”

“ Anything lost in a peat-moss does not decay away, but remains in a blackened but still recognizable condition for hundreds of years. Not long ago a basket containing the bones of a child was found in a Scotch peat-moss. ”

“ This moss is indeed by itself a remarkable phenomenon in the economy of nature; being a kind of balancing power, absorbing the useless surplus of water from the ground, from the swamps, and from the atmosphere especially, using it in part for its growth, carefully husbanding it for the preservation and transformation of all the woody tissue, its own included, into peat, and in dry seasons distributing the remainder to feed the numerous springs which have their source in the bogs. Thus, the peat bogs, like the glaciers of some countries, feed mighty rivers. ”

“ MOSSES AND MOORS Peat-mosses and their birds—Moorlands—Cotton-grass—Scotch whisky—Growth of peat-moss—A vegetable pump—Low-lying and moorland mosses—Eruptions and floods of peat—Colonizing by heather and Scotch fir—Peat-mosses as museums—Remains of children and troopers—Irish elk—Story of the plants in Denmark—Rhododendrons and peat—Uses of peat—Reclaiming the mosses near Glasgow.
IN Great Britain in this present year one finds exceedingly few places where the influence of man cannot be traced. ”

“ Peat-earth has a spongy, elastic feeling when trodden upon, arising from the quantity of water that it holds, and it can only be rendered fit for cultivation by draining. In its elastic state it is what is called in Scotland a moss, and in England a peat-bog. Should the water, instead of being afforded a vent by drainage, be suffered to accumulate for many years, till it completely saturates the peat, the soil becomes what is called a morass, or quagmire ”

“ We find that they thrive best in good fibrous peat, and some live sphagnum moss on a part of the surface; when in a growing state the moss keeps them moist without too much water being given whilst they are making their growth. In watering them be careful not to wet the young shoots. The pots should be three parts filled with drainage, which must be formed of broken pots and lumps of charcoal intermixed. The plants must be elevated about two inches above the rim of the pot. ”

“ Peat is dug from bogs or marshes. We might say that a peat marsh is the beginning of a coal bed. Peat is the partly decayed vegetation which has slowly accumulated in wet places. In the colder countries it is formed largely of moss and similar water-loving plants, but where the climate is warm other kinds of marsh vegetation, and even trees, aid in forming peat. Sometimes floods bring earth and deposit it in the marshes, in which case the peat is less suitable for fuel, but forms a rich and productive soil instead. ”

“ There is a certain kind of moss called sphagnum, which in large part makes up the peat-producing vegetation. Its roots die annually, but from the living top new roots are sent out each year. The workmen who dig peat understand that if this surface is destroyed the growth of the bed must stop ”

“ The growth of the peat in cases of this kind may be stopped at the water level, where by a more complete decomposition of the plants a coat of humus is formed, which being invaded by land plants is transformed into a prairie or a forest.—But more generally peat grows above the water level, and then the production of the matter and its protection against the influence of the atmosphere are essentially due to the agency of a peculiar kind of moss, the sphagnum. ”

“ Many growers place a thin layer of fine dead sphagnum moss or of peat over this drainage material, and it certainly makes a useful addition. It is particularly useful in isolated pots or small boxes, as it holds enough moisture to prevent too rapid drying out, while all surplus water is quickly taken off by the coarse material beneath. Over the moss coarse siftings from the soil may be placed, while on top only the finest and best soil should be used. The smaller the seeds, the more care must be exercised in the sowing. ”

“ Where, as may happen, grass succeeds moss, or moss succeeds grass, the different layers reveal their origin by their color and texture. At considerable depths, however, where the peat is very old, these differences nearly or entirely disappear.
The geological character of a country is not without influence on the kind of peat. It is only in regions where the rocks are granitic or silicious, where, at least, the surface waters are free or nearly free from lime, that mosses make the bulk of the peat.
In limestone districts, peat is chiefly formed from grasses and sedges. ”

“ In Zealand the surfaces of ponds are so frequently covered with floating beds of moss, often stout enough to bear a man, that they have there received a special name "Hangesak." In the Russian Ural, there occur lakes whose floating covers of moss often extend five or six feet above the water, and are so firm that roads are made across them, and forests of large fir-trees find support. These immense accumulations are in fact floating moors, consisting entirely of peat, save the living vegetation at the surface. ”

“ The bog is drained, the surface moss or grass-turf and roots are removed, and then the peat is broken up by a simple spade-plow, in furrows 2 inches wide and 8 or 10 inches deep. The broken peat is repeatedly traversed with wooden harrows, and is thus pulverized and dried. When suitably dry, it is carried to a magazine, where it is rammed into moulds by a simple stamp of two hundred pounds weight. The broken peat is reduced to two-fifths its first bulk, and the blocks thus formed are so hard, as to admit of cutting with a saw or ax without fracture. ”

“ You will find this bog moss grows in a peculiar way, the fresh green branches growing up and up, while below lie the half dead older stems, which are partly preserved by the peaty acids. These layers of moss collect for many years, till very thick masses of peat-bog may be formed.
Among the bog-moss you will often find the sundew and butterwort (see pp. 114-15) , which are two of our chief insect-eating plants. They love the boggy moorland, or a damp spot beside a little moorland stream. ”

“ In moist places, Sphagnum, or bog-moss, is very common, with many of the allied kinds of moss which compose peat in the alpine districts of Europe.
"The mountain-tops are very bare; affording only Mosses and Lichens, which cling with astonishing pertinacity to the rugged faces of the sharp peaks and piles of rock. ”

“ It is not rare to find in our bogs, patches of moss of considerable area concealing deep water with a treacherous appearance of solidity, as the hunter and botanist have often found to their cost. In countries of more humid atmosphere, they are more common and attain greater dimensions. ”

“ Most important of all, practically every one of them has the ordinary green color of the better known plants, and as we shall see in the section devoted to “Leaves as Factories for the Making of Food,” that stamps them at once as plants, if other things did not.
Mosses are almost infinite in their habits, some growing on the dry rocks or trunks of trees, many growing in moist woods, some in the water, and immense quantities of certain kinds in bogs. The peculiar bog mosses, known as sphagnum, play an important part in forming peat and perhaps coal. ”

“ In the Mosses the plant-body (gametophyte) is always separable into a radially organized, supporting and conducting axis (stem) Mosses. and thin, flat, assimilating, and transpiring appendages (leaves) . To the base of the stem are attached a number of branched cell-threads (rhizoids) which ramify in the soil, fixing the plant and absorbing water from soil. [For the histology of the comparatively simple but in many respects aberrant Bog-mosses (Sphagnaceae) , see Bryophyta.] The stems of the other mosses resemble one another in their main histological features. ”

“ On the other hand, some are barely individually distinguishable to the naked eye. Fig. 527 represents a common little Moss, enlarged to about twelve times its natural size; and by its side is part of a leaf, much magnified, showing that it is composed of cellular tissue (parenchyma-cells) only. The leaves of Mosses are always simple, distinct, and sessile on the stem. The fructification is an urn-shaped spore-case, in this as in most cases raised on a slender stalk. The spore-case loosely bears on its summit a thin and pointed cap, like a candle-extinguisher, called a Calyptra. ”

“ The nature of the vegetation that flourishes in a bog, has much effect on the character of the peat. The peats chiefly derived from mosses that have grown in the full sunlight, have a yellowish-red color in their upper layers, which usually becomes darker as we go down, running through all shades of brown until at a considerable depth it is black. Peats produced principally from grasses are grayish in appearance at the surface, being full of silvery fibres—the skeletons of the blades of grasses and sedges, while below they are commonly black. ”

“ I walked in among the herd, which numbered about ten thousand, and watched them eat. They would paw away the snow until they reached the moss, which lay about ten inches below the surface, and then, kneeling down, would dig it out with their teeth. The moss is about ten inches thick, and is a loose, spongy mass of vegetation. It will not bear the weight of a man, the foot sinking through it. It forms a most excellent food for deer, but horses will not eat it. ”

“ As soon as it has started it grows and spreads very rapidly, drinking in water and air through all its cells and sending up the moss buds which swell and grow, giving out roots below and fine stems above, which soon become crowded with leaves, forming the velvety carpet we call moss. Meanwhile the soft threads below die away, giving up all their nourishment to the moss-stems, and this is why, when you take up the moss, you find each stem separate. But now comes the question, How does each stem live after the nourishing threads below have died? ”

“ Many other mosses will also usually be found in like habitats.
Marly and clayey banks will yield such mosses as Fissidens bryoides, a very beautiful little moss, known by its flattened foliage, with leaves on opposite sides of the stem, looking very fern-like, fruit-stalk arising from the top of the stem and surmounted by an erect reddish capsule, with a cone-shaped lid, and a fringe of sixteen bifid teeth. The fruit of this moss ripens from October to the end of the year. ”

“ Others again are light and porous, and remain so on drying; these contain intermixed vegetable matter that is but little advanced in the peaty decomposition. Some peats are almost entirely free from mineral matters, and on burning, leave but a few per cent. of ash, others contain considerable quantities of lime or iron, in chemical combination, or of sand and clay that have been washed in from the hills adjoining the swamps. As has been observed, the peat of some swamps is mostly derived from mosses, that of others originates largely from grasses ”