XXVIII.—The Plant Remains in the Scottish Peat Mosses

Abstract

The following paper deals with an investigation of the successive zones of plant remains contained in the deeper peat deposits covering areas in the Scottish Southern Uplands. The field work was carried on during the summer and early autumn of 1904, and the detailed examination of the peat in the laboratory during part of the winter. No attempt has been made to work out the detailed flora of the different zones, but attention has chiefly been directed to the dominant plant remains found at different horizons in the mosses. Whilst the list of plants from each zone is small, the general facies of the flora of any layer can be gauged from the abundant presence of a few characteristic plants such as Salix reticulata and Empetrum, or Sphagnum and Eriophorum. Thus, while the investigation is incomplete as regards any addition to the history of the British Flora, it will, I hope, throw some light upon the succession of vegetation over the older peat mosses since their origin.