Puerto Rico Sphagnum

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.