Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1
I am not for sure what the original poster was referring to.
Peat moss or peat is a product of a bog.
Acidic and is a preservative.
Takes years to develop.
Sphagnum moss is like now and grows in trees and so forth.
'The old cars and trucks used to use it as a filling in the seats.
Somewhere along the road the two got confused and mixed up with each other.
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I always get confused, but usually the "peat moss" we get here is bagged and labeled under the sphagnum peat moss in a compressed square inside a plastic wrapper. I've never seen a bog, per se' (maybe I have and didn't know it?). I've been in some swamps down here that were "boggy" looking (where bigfoot likes to hang).
I guess I thought the two were somewhat interchangeable, technically speaking; but not something I'm tooo familiar with. Below are different excerpts from a "wiki" type internet query. Still confusing to me.
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Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as peat moss. Accumulations of Sphagnum can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16–26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species.
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Peat Moss – Technically called Sphagnum Peat Moss. This is the stuff you see most often in bags at the nursery, sold as a soil amendment. It is comprised of decaying material harvested from bogs. It is the dead material underneath the living part of the plant (we'll talk about that in a second).
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40,000 acres of sphagnum are currently being harvested in Canada, with 90% of the product destined for gardens in the U.S. In the U.K., where peat moss is burned as fuel, as well, nearly 94% of the lowland bogs have been altered or completely destroyed due to harvesting.
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Sphagnum moss, generally the species cristatum and subnitens, is harvested while still growing and is dried out to be used in nurseries and horticulture as a plant growing medium. The practice of harvesting peat moss should not be confused with the harvesting of moss peat.