Sphagnum lindbergii |
Sphagnum mississippiense |
|
---|---|---|
brown-stem peat-moss, Lindberg's sphagnum |
Mississippi sphagnum |
|
Habit | Plants moderate-sized to large, moderately densely branched; green to brown, often bluish tinged and/or shiny when dry; capitulum flattopped with a conspicuous terminal bud. | Plants small, short and weak-stemmed, compact and sprawling in thin mats, green to pale yellow. |
Stem(s) | leaves lingulate-spatulate, large, 1.3–1.6 mm; appressed to stem; apex very broad and lacerate; hyaline cells efibrillose and aporose, often septate. |
leaves elongate-triangular, 1.3–1.5 mm; often spreading; apex obtuse; hyaline cells mostly efibrillose and 1–septate in proximal half and lateral portions of leaves. |
Branches | strongly 5-ranked and straight. |
unranked, often blunt and with leaves moderately elongated at distal end. |
Branch leaves | ovate-lanceolate, 1.5–3 mm; straight to slightly subsecund; imbricate to somewhat reflexed and not undulate; margins entire; hyaline cells long and narrow, length to width ca. 10:1 on convex surface with 1 or more small pores in the cell ends and angles and often with numerous pseudopores along the margins, on concave surface with large round wall thinnings on the cell ends and angles; chlorophyllous cells triangular to trapezoidal in transverse section, apex often exposed on concave surface. |
ovate to broadly ovate at branch base and becoming ovate-lanceolate at branch tip; 1.2–1.5 mm; undulate when dry, margins serrulate; hyaline cells of convex surface with 0–5 pores or pseudopores at cell apex, concave surface with faint round wall thinnings in cell angles, but may be absent, chlorophyllous cells trapezoidal in transverse section, exposed more broadly on convex surface. |
Sexual condition | monoicous or dioicous. |
probably dioicous. |
Spores | 22–34 µm; both surfaces smooth, apparent ridged border on proximal surface; proximal laesura more than 0.5 spore radius. |
not seen. |
Branch | fascicles with 2 spreading and 2 pendent branches, leaves not much elongated at distal end.; branch stems green, with cortex enlarged with retort cells. |
fascicles with 2–3 spreading and 0–2 pendent branches.; branch stems green, with cortex enlarged with conspicuous retort cells. |
Sphagnum lindbergii |
Sphagnum mississippiense |
|
Habitat | Widespread forming carpets in ombrotrophic to weakly minerotrophic boreal mires | Mats in seasonally wet depressions in coastal plain |
Elevation | low to high elevations | low elevations |
Distribution |
AK; CO; NH; NY; WA; AB; BC; MB; NF; NS; NT; NU; ON; QC; YT; Greenland; Eurasia |
LA; MS; NJ |
Discussion | Sporophytes are uncommon. Sphagnum lindbergii is normally easily distinguished from other carpet-forming species of sect. Cuspidata by its large, strongly lacerate stem leaf and dark brown to black stem. Sexual condition is taken from from L. I. Savicz-Lubitzkaya and Z. N. Smirnova (1968). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Sporophytes of Sphagnum mississippiense are unknown. The combination of broad branch leaves and obtuse stem leaves will distinguish it from S. cuspidatum and S. viride. The much commoner and more wide-ranging S. trinitense, although also having serrulate branch leaves, has much narrower branch leaves that are more elongate at the branch tips, becoming quite lanceolate as compared with the ovate-lanceolate branch leaves that S. mississippiense exhibits at its branch tips. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 27, p. 70. | FNA vol. 27, p. 73. |
Parent taxa | Sphagnaceae > Sphagnum > sect. Cuspidata | Sphagnaceae > Sphagnum > sect. Cuspidata |
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Schimper: Öfvers. Kongl. Vetensk.-Akad. Förh. 14: 126. (1857) | R. E. Andrus: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 237. 1987 (as mississippiensis), |
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