Sphagnum magellanicum Brid.
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Authority
Sharp, Aaron J., et al. 1994. The Moss Flora of Mexico. Part One: Sphagnales to Bryales. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 69 (1): 1-452.
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Family
Sphagnaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Plants stout, usually pink, red, or purplish, in compact cushions or hummocks. Wood cylinder of stem red; cortical cells in 3—4 layers, short-rectangular, thin-walled, usually delicately spiral-flbrillose With 1 or occasionally 2(-4) large, round to elliptic pores. Stem leaves flat, ± oblong-lingulate, rounded at the apex, finely fringed; hyaline cells not divided, with fibrils none or only near the leaf apex, largely resorbed on the outer surface or sometimes on both surfaces. Branches relatively short, stout and tumid, in fascicles of 4-5 (2 spreading); cortical cells in 1 layer short-rectangular, delicately fibrillose, the outer walls frequently with 1 large, round pore at the upper end. Branch leaves erect or imbricate (or rarely ± spreading at the tips), deeply cucullate-concave, ca. 2 mm long, broadly ovate, denticulate along a marginal resorption furrow, rough at back of the apex; hyaline cells plane or nearly so on both surfaces, fibrillose, on the outer surface with 2-5(-10), large, elliptic pores (or occasionally pseudopores) at the ends and comers and along the commissures, in groups of (2-)3 at adjacent cell comers, fewer and passing into membrane gaps toward the leaf apex, on the inner surface with few (0-5) elliptic pores or pseudopores at corners and along the commissures in the upper and lateral regions in size, often with 1 large, round to elliptic pore at the upper end; green cells in section small, elliptic, central, and entirely included. Dioicous. Spores 22-27 µm, obscurely roughened or nearly smooth.
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Discussion
S. magellanicum Brid., Muse. Recent. 2(1): 24.1798
The plants are stout and, at least when growing in the sun, reddish. The branch leaves are broad, cucullate-concave, rough at back of the apex, and narrowly denticulate-bordered owing to marginal resorption. The cortical cells of stems and branches are fibrillose. The branch leaves have hyaline cells nearly flat on both surfaces, and their green cells are, in section, elliptic and entirely included.
In Brazil, Venezuela, Guadeloupe, and Dominica is a similar reddish species, 5. alegrense Warnst. The cortical cells of stems and branches lack fibrils; there are numerous pseudopores along the commissures on the outer surface of branch leaves (in addition to grouped pores at adjacent angles) and even more on the inner surface; and the side walls of hyaline cells of branch leaves are covered with very fine, vermiform ridges visible in longitudinal sections (and, in cross-sections, as very fine, irregular papillae).
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Distribution
Oaxaca (above Valle Nacional, on a moist bank at 2400 m elev., mixed with S. meridense, Mishler 3439, MICH).—Mexico; Guatemala and Costa Rica, Panama; common and widespread in Europe, northern Asia, and North America from Alaska to Greenland and south to California in the west and to Florida and Alabama in me East; Bemmda; West Indies. northern South America to Tierra del Fuego; Falkland Islands; New Zealand.
Mexico North America| Guatemala Central America| Costa Rica South America| Panama Central America| Europe| Russia Asia| Canada North America| United States of America North America| Bermuda South America| West Indies| South America| Falkland Islands South America| New Zealand