Sphagnum wilfii |
Sphagnum mississippiense |
|
---|---|---|
wilf's sphagnum |
Mississippi sphagnum |
|
Habit | Plants densely tufted, capitulum ± flat-topped; typically red; forms small tufts and hummocks in shaded and open sites. | Plants small, short and weak-stemmed, compact and sprawling in thin mats, green to pale yellow. |
Stem(s) | leaves 1.2 mm or more, broadly triangular to triangular-lingulate, 1.2 or more, apex acute, border broad at base (more than 0.25 width); hyaline cells mostly efibrillose, 1–2-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 | uncrowded, 5-ranked. |
unranked, often blunt and with leaves moderately elongated at distal end. |
Branch leaves | ovate-lanceolate, 0.7 mm or more, straight, concave, loosely involute from apex to middle or near base; concave surface with few (2–4) small, rounded, or elliptic pores, especially in cell angles, concave surface aporose or with 1–2 pores at cell ends. |
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 | unknown. |
probably dioicous. |
Spores | unknown. |
not seen. |
Branch | fascicles with 2 spreading and 1 pendent branch. |
fascicles with 2–3 spreading and 0–2 pendent branches.; branch stems green, with cortex enlarged with conspicuous retort cells. |
Sphagnum wilfii |
Sphagnum mississippiense |
|
Habitat | Blanket mires, especially with Pinus contorta | Mats in seasonally wet depressions in coastal plain |
Elevation | low to moderate elevations | low elevations |
Distribution |
AK; BC |
LA; MS; NJ |
Discussion | The type locality of Sphagnum wilfii in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia is a site on a pygmy pine slope near the coast. This species has been collected only infrequently but is fairly common in southeastern Alaska. The combination of red pigment, the rather large and triangular to triangular-lingulate stem leaves and the quinquefarious, loosely spreading branch leaves should identify it where it occurs. See also discussion under 68. S. bartlettianum. (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. 101. | FNA vol. 27, p. 73. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | H. A. Crum: in N. L. Britton et al., N. Amer. Fl., ser. 2, 11: 90, fig. 57. (1984) | R. E. Andrus: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 237. 1987 (as mississippiensis), |
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