THE SPHAGNACEiE OR PEAT-MOSSES
OF
EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA.
CHAPTER I.
LITERATURE OF THE GENUS SPHAGNUM.
T h e name o-i^ayi-os was first used by the ancient botanists, T h e o phrastus,
Dioscorides, and Pliny, to indicate certain species of
Salvia and L ich en ; but as a genus o f mosses Sphagnum was
established by D i l l e n iu s in his first work, Catalogus Plantarum
sponte circa Gissam nascentium (1719), though not in the restricted
sense as now understood, since he included in it various other
mosses which had no evident pedicels, as Grimmia apocarpa,
Hedwigia ciliata, Cryphcea, &c.
Before his time, however, L o b e l had figured a true species—
6”. acutifolium— in his leones Stirpium, ii. p. 242 (1591), under the
name of Muscus terrestris vulgaris ; and a century later P lu k e n e t
figured 6'. cymbifolium, in his Phytographia, as Muscus palustris
in ericetis nascens floridus, and V a i l l a n t , in his Botanicon Parisiense
(1727), also gives figures o f the same.
D il l en iu s , in the third edition o f R a y ’s Synopsis Stirpium
Britannicarum adopts the genus, with the observation,
“ This moss is like none o f the terrestrial, but has a peculiar aspect,
nor is it produced anywhere else but in bogs and marshes.” In
his celebrated Historia Muscorum (1741) he introduced sixteen
species o f Sphagnum, but the only genuine are S . palustre molle
deflexum, squamis cymbiformibus = .P. cymbifolium, and .S’, palustre
molle deflexum, squamis capillaceis with a van ^ fiuitans = 6'. acutifo
lium -f- cuspidatum.
L inn/Eus, in his Species Plantarum (1753), still re ta in ed
Cryphcea heteromalla as Sphagnum arboreum, and re cogn ized on ly