Sphagnum portoricense Hampe

  • 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.

  • Family

    Sphagnaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Sphagnum portoricense Hampe

  • Description

    Species Description - Plants robust, dark, greasy-green above and brown below or yellow-brown in extensive carpets. Wood cylinder of stem brown; cortical cells in 3-4 layers, fibrillose with 1-6 irregularly rounded pores. Stem leaves lingulate, with a broad, finely meshed fringe at the sides and around the broad apex; hyaline cells often 1-2 divided, about as wide as long near the leaf tip, narrower below, on the outer surface almost entirely resorbed, on the inner surface often showing small pores and traces of fibrils, especially near the leaf apex. Branches in fascicles of 4-5 (2 spreading), stout, tumid, club-shaped; cortical cells increasing in size toward the branch tip, nested together by a funnel-shaped base, fibrillose, the inner wall cormgated by dense cross-fibrils, the outer surface without pores. Branch leaves closely imbricate, dimorphous; leaves at the base of branches smaller than those toward the branch tips, cucullate-concave, broadly cordate ovate hyaline-fringed; hyaline cells fibrillose, nearly plane on the inner surface, strongly convex on the outer, on the outer surface almost entirely resorbed in the upper part of the leaf in the lower part with 7-10 large, elliptic pores at corners and along commissures, on the inner surface with about 4 small, elliptic pores at the comers in the upper part of the leaf, those in the lateral regions more numerous, larger, and round; leaves of the upper part of branches much larger, denticulate along a resorption furrow, not hyaline-fringed, with hyaline cells resorbed on the outer surface only in a few apical cells; green cells in section equilateral-triangular and exposed on the inner surface (or rarely ± trapezoidal with narrow exposure on the outer surface), the inner walls of hyaline cells where they abut the green cells usually beset with fringe fibrils (sometimes evident only at leaf bases). Apparently dioicous. Spores 22-29 |im, finely roughened.

  • Discussion

    S. portoricense Hampe, Linnaea 25: 359. 1852

    Sphagnum portoricense is recognized in the field by stout, dark-green or brownish, wet-shiny, club-shaped branches. The cortical cells of the branches are funnel-like and nested together; they lack pores at the surface; and the inner walls, next to the w o o d cylinder, are densely corrugate-fibrillose. The leaves of the upper part of the branches are denticulatebordered by a resorption furrow; those toward the branch bases are hyaline-fringed. The green cells of branch leaves are broadly triangular in section, and the commissures of hyaline cells are normally covered b y fringe fibrils.

  • Distribution

    On wet soil at 1250 m altitude; Puebla (Villa Juarez). In tropical America on wet banks in mountains but in the Coastal Plain of eastern North America submerged in shallow water of pools and drainage ditches and extending upward above water level at the margins, sometimes also in swampy places submerged during part of the year. — Eastern Mexico; Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, and Venezuela; along the coast from Maine and New York to Rorida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

    United States of America North America| Venezuela South America| Guadeloupe South America| Puerto Rico South America| Mexico North America|