Puerto Rico Sphagnum

Sphagnum portoricense is normally very easily distinguished because of its wet growing habit and strongly clavate branches.

This species is characterized by having stem leaves nearly as long as wide, branch leaves large and deeply concave, and by having both stem leaves and branch leaves with fringed fibrils at the apices.

Plants moderate-sized to often quite robust, ± weak-stemmed, lax; green, bluish green, green and brown to dark golden brown, often speckled in appearance; found submerged in shallow water, stranded along shore lines in loose carpets. Stems brown, superficial cortical layer with spiral reinforcing fibrils clearly visible, usually many pores per cell (1-6), comb-fibrils on interior wall. Stem leaves 1.1 × 1 mm; rarely hemiisophyllous; hyaline cells non-ornamented, frequently septate. Branches clavate and rounded at distal end. Branch fascicles with 2 spreading and 2 pendent branches. Branch stems with hyaline cell comb-lamellae visible on interior cortex wall, cortical cell end walls with conspicuous funnel projections more than ¹/2 length of cell, superficial cortical wall aporose. Branch leaves broadly ovate, 2.4 × 1.7 mm; hyaline cells on convex surface with numerous round pores along the commissures, comb-lamellae on hyaline cell walls where overlying chlorophyllous cells; chlorophyllous cells broadly triangular in transverse section and well-enclosed on the convex surface. Sexual condition dioicous. Capsule with pseudostomata. Spores 22-29 µm; finely papillose on both surfaces; indistinct triradiate ridge on distal surface; proximal laesura 0.5-0.6 spore radius.

Plants grayish green, or yellow above, brownish orange below, in beautiful shiny tufts. Stem cortex in 3–4 layers, hyaline cells with delicate fibrils, each cell with 1–3 large pores; central cylinder brownish. Stem leaves 1.0–1.2 mm × 1.0–1.1 mm, broadly lingulate with a broad apex; margins borders hyaline, differentiated, sometimes with fringed fibrils across the apex; hyaline cells mostly divided, often without fibrils, or with fibrils only in the upper cells. Branches in fascicles of 4–5, with 2–3 spreading. Branch leaves 2.5–3.5 mm × 2.0–2.5 mm, broadly ovate, strongly concave, narrowed at base, margins involute and hyaline, cucullate-concave and sometimes fringed and dorsally roughened at the apex; hyaline cells with large, rounded pores on the ventral surface, with numerous, half-circular pores at the opposite ends along commissural rows and membrane pleats in the upper cells on the dorsal surface; green cells in cross section rather large, nearly equilateral-triangular, exposed on the ventral surface. Dioicous. Sporophytes not seen.

Distribution: North Asia, North, Central, and South America.

Habitat: submerged in bogs.

Sphagnum sullivantianum Austin

Sphagnum portoricense Hampe, Linnaea 25 : 359. 1853
Sphagnum Sultiranlianum Aust. Am. Jour. Sci. II. 35: 253. 1863. Sphagnum Herminieri Schimp. ; Besch. Ann. Sci. Nat. VI. 3: 265. 1876.
Plants robust to very robust, more or less tinged with brown. Wood-cylinder brown; cortical cells of the stem in 3-4 layers, their walls thin, reinforced by fibril-bands, the outer cells irregularly quadrilateral to hexagonal, sometimes wider than long, each with 1-4 irregularly rounded pores: stem-leaves of medium size, lingulate, with a broad finely meshed hyaline border; hyaline cells occasionally divided, near the apex of the leaf as wide as long, narrower below, their membrane on the inner surface often showing small pores and traces of fibrils, especially in cells near the apex of the leaf, on the outer surface almost entirely resorbed: branches in fascicles of 4 or 5, 2 robust, horizontal or dccurved, the others pendent, closely applied to the stem, their cortical cells in a single layer, increa,sing in size toward the apex of the branch, each cell inserted by a saccate to funnel-shaped prolongation into the one beneath; cell-walls reinforced inwardly by numerous fibril-bands, corrugated where overlying the woodcylinder as in the next preceding species, the outer surface without pores: leaves of spreading branches smaUer near the base of the branch, broadly ovate with cordate to auiiculate base, hyaline-bordered as the stem-leaves; hyaline cells nearly as broad as long in the apical part of the leaf, below narrower, 2-3 times as long as wide, on the inner surface with rather numerous small pores in the angles of the cells and numerous larger rounded pores in the lateral regions, on the outer surface the membrane almost entirely resorbed in the upper part of the leaf, in the lower part with very numerous elliptic pores along the commissures: leaves nearer the apex of the branch much larger, denticulate but lacking the hyaline border, the pores about as in the other leaves, but the membrane on the outer surface resorbed only in a few apical cells, the pores on the inner surface relatively not so numerous : chlorophyl-cells exposed on the inner surface of the leaf, in section equilateral-triangular; inner walls of hyaline cells where in contact with chlorophyl-cells normally beset with fringe-fibrils (these however sometimes present only in the lower part of the leaf or entirely lacking) ; hyaline cells very convex on the outer surface, up to one half of the diameter of the cell ; resorption-furrow present. Antheridial branches and leaves hardly differentiated. Fruit unknown.
Type locality: Porto Rico.
Distribution: New Jersey; Georgia; Florida; Porto Rico; Guadeloupe.