Sphagnum subsecundum var. rufescens (Nees & Hornsch.) Hübener

  • 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 subsecundum var. rufescens (Nees & Hornsch.) Hübener

  • Description

    Species Description - Plants rather small to fairly robust, in small tufts or cushions, green or more often yellow-brown to orange. Branches of capitula often curved. Stems usually brown; wood cylinder yellow-green to brown; cortical cells in 1 layer (sometimes irregularly so), without fibrils or pores. Stem leaves concave, 1.3-2.5 mm long (more than 1/2 as long as the branch leaves, rarely as long or longer), oblong to lingulate, rounded-obtuse, with a narrow border that is not much broadened at base; hyaline cells commonly 1 -divided, fibrillose and porose in the upper 1/3 -1/2, with many pores ± crowded along the commissures on both surfaces, occasionally few or none on the inner. Branches often tumid, straight or upcurved, in fascicles of 2-6 (2-3 spreading); cortical cells without fibrils, the retort cells with inconspicuous necks. Branch leaves often subsecund, 1.5-2.2 mm long, oblong-ovate to suborbicular, involute-tapered, toothed at the apex, otherwise entire, bordered by 2-3 rows of linear cells; hyaline cells fibrillose, slightly convex on both surfaces, sometimes slightly more so on the inner, on the outer surface with pores numerous and often in a beadlike rows along the commissures, rather small, elliptic, and ringed, on the inner surface with pores and pseudopores in continuous or interrupted commissural rows, or sometimes few or none; green cells in section truncately elliptic and equally exposed on both surfaces or variously trapezoidal with broader exposure on the outer surface. Dioicous. Spores 22-24 µm, smooth.

  • Discussion

    Fig. 9

    S. subsecundum Nees ex Sturm var. rufescens (Nees & Homsch.) Hub., Muscol. Germ. 26. 1833.

    S. contortum var. rufescens Nees & Hornsch. in Nees, Homsch. & Sturm, Bryol. Germ. 15. 1823.

    S. lescurii Sull. & Lesq., Musci Bor. Amer. 4. 1856.

    S.flavicans Warnst., Allg. Bot. Z. Syst. 1: 205. 1895.

    Sphagnum subsecundum is a puzzling complex of intergrading forms. The var. subsecundum, widespread in temperate latitudes, causes little trouble: The stem cortex consists of one layer of cells; the stem leaves are smaller than the branch leaves, deltoid to oblong, and more or less fibrillose and/or porose only at the extreme tip. The wide-ranging and exceedingly variable var. rufescens also has cells of the stem cortex 1-layered (though sometimes irregularly 2-layered); the stem leaves are half as long as the branch leaves or even longer, oblong-lingulate, and porose and fibrillose in the upper third to half or more; the pores are especially numerous on the outer surface of stem leaves, where they occur in commissural rows, but they are often few or lacking on the inner surface.

  • Distribution

    On wet banks at 2150-2800 m altitude; Chiapas (between San Cristobal de las Casas and Tenejapa), Oaxaca (W of Oaxaca, type of S. flavicans), Veracruz (Huayacocotla).—Eastern Mexico; Belize, Guatemala, and Costa Rica; Colombia and Ecuador; British Columbia to California; Newfoundland to Wisconsin, south to Florida and Texas; widespread in Europe

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