Bog Plants

Bog Plants belong to many very different groups. The bulk of peat though generally composed of Sphagnum, may be made up of rushes and sedges, as in the Cambridgeshire Fens, or of golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium) or other plants. On wet sand or the spongy sides of slaty or limestone mountains, where there is no organic matter in the soil, the sundews (Drosera) and butterworts (Pinguicula), which get their nitrogenous food from captured flies, will flourish, and it is noticeable that all insectivorous plants are either bog-plants or water-plants, whilst many of them possess but very small roots. We may perhaps trace a connection between the presence of an abundance of small flying insects over bogs and the occurrence of many small flowered but beautiful plants in such places, such as the bog-asphodel (Narthecium), bog-pimpernel (Anagallis tenella), ivy-leaved bell-flower (Wahlenbergia hederacea), marsh St. John's-wort (Hypericum eludes), grass of Parnassus (Parnassia), and the plants already mentioned. Most bog-plants can be grown in sphagnum, if kept constantly moist; but the use of two porous pans, one inside the other, avoids the danger of decay from absolute stagnation.