Recurved Sphagnum

Sphagnum recurvum Beauv. Prodr. Aetheog. 88. 1805
Sphagnum pulchricoma CMuW.Syn. : 102. 1848.
Sphagnum fallax H. Klinggr. Topogr. Fl. Westpr. 128. 1880.
5p/iagnum ri/)ario!(i(ri Wamst. Hedwigia 47: 118. 1908. ^
Sphagnum amblyphyllum Wamst. in Engler, Pflanzenreich Sphag. 212. 1911.
Plants commonly more or less robust, bright-green or sometimes tinged yellowish or brownish. Wood-cylinder yellowish-green; cortical cells of the stem slightly if at all differentiated, the outer cells of the stem elongate-quadrilateral, without fibrils or pores: stemleaves very small, triangular to triangular-Iingulate, the apex mucronate to rounded or truncate, sometimes slightly eroded, the border of narrow cells with pitted walls occupying nearly the whole breadth of the leaf toward the base; hyaline cells rathei short, not divided, normally without fibrils, their cell-membrane on the inner surface mostly resorbed in the cells of the apical part, the gaps decreasing in size downward and toward the side-region and passing into longitudinal membrane-pleats, on the outer surface resorbed only in the cells of the immediate apex: branches normally in fascicles of 5, 2 spreading, their cortical cells in a single layer, the retortcells with inconspicuous necks: branch-leaves undulate when dry with spreading tips, narrowly lanceolate, involute toward the toothed apex, the border entire, of 2-4 rows of very narrow cells: hyaline cells fibrillose, narrowly linear-rhomboidal, in the basal portion 10-12 times as long as wide, shorter above to 6-7 times, on the inner surface with numerous large rounded pores in the angles and near the commissures, 4-7 per cell, on the outer surface with endpores throughout, in the apical portion with small ringed pores also in the angles and near the commissures, accordingly 2-6 per cell: chlorophyl-cells triangular in section with the base of the triangle exposed on the outer surface of the leaf, its apex reaching the inner surface or slightly included ; hyaline cells scarcely convex on the outer surface, slightly so on the inner, up to one fourth of the diameter of the cell.
Dioicous. Antheridia in catkins on spreading branches; antheridial leaves brown, smaller than the normal branch-leaves, ovate with a sharp involute point, the hyaline cells shorter and wider. Fruiting branches erect; perichaetial leaves large, ovate, at the apex abruptly pointed with an involute often rent point, composed mostly of uniform narrow cells, the hyaline cells if differentiated reduced and without fibrils, showing membrane-gaps on the inner surface: capsule brown: spores brown-yellow, 20-25 m in diameter, granular-roughened.
Type locality: South Carolina.
Distribution: Labrador southward to Florida and Louisiana; Colorado; Washington to Alaska; also in South America, Europe, and Asia, and reported from Africa.