Sphagnum viride |
Sphagnum mississippiense |
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Mississippi sphagnum |
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Habit | Plants slender and weak-stemmed, moderate-sized, flaccid and plumose when submerged and stiffer and more compact when emergent; green to yellow, usually not tinged with brown or red; capitulum well defined, flat in submersed forms and more rounded in emergent forms. | Plants small, short and weak-stemmed, compact and sprawling in thin mats, green to pale yellow. |
Stem(s) | leaves long triangular-ovate, 1–2 mm; usually appressed; apex acute to apiculate, hyaline cells only rarely septate or aporose but often fibrillose in apical region. |
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 | unranked, straight to slightly curved, leaves somewhat elongated at distal end. |
unranked, often blunt and with leaves moderately elongated at distal end. |
Branch leaves | 1.5–2.7 mm, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate; straight to falcate toward branch tips; when dry often undulate and lightly recurved, margins entire to rarely weakly toothed along the margins in flaccid aquatic forms, hyaline cells on convex surface with 0–1 small round pores at apex, on concave surface with faint round wall thinnings in cell apices and angles; chlorophyllous cells triangular to trapezoidal in transverse section, broadly exposed on the convex surface and exposed slightly to broadly on the 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 | dioicous. |
probably dioicous. |
Spores | 30–43 µm; the superficial surface coarsely papillose to papillose reticulate. |
not seen. |
Branch | fascicles with 2 spreading and 2–3 pendent branches.; branch stems green, cortex enlarged with conspicuous retort cells. |
fascicles with 2–3 spreading and 0–2 pendent branches.; branch stems green, with cortex enlarged with conspicuous retort cells. |
Sphagnum viride |
Sphagnum mississippiense |
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Habitat | Widespread, forming wet carpets in weakly minerotrophic mires | Mats in seasonally wet depressions in coastal plain |
Elevation | low to moderate elevations | low elevations |
Distribution |
AL; CT; DE; FL; IN; MA; ME; MI; MN; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; PA; SC; TN; VA; VT; NF; NS; Europe |
LA; MS; NJ |
Discussion | The sporophytes of Sphagnum viride are uncommon. See discussion under 27. S. cuspidatum for taxonomic distinctions. Spore characters are taken from Flatberg’s description. (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. 77. | FNA vol. 27, p. 73. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Flatberg: Kongel. Norske Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. (Trondheim) 1: 9, figs. (1988) | R. E. Andrus: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 237. 1987 (as mississippiensis), |
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