Tropicos | Name - !Sphagnum meridense (Hampe) Müll. Hal.

Cent. Amer. Moss > Sphagnaceae > Sphagnum > Sphagnum meridense

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!Sphagnum meridense (Hampe) Müll. Hal.

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Project data (Last Modified On 3/23/2011)

Discussion: This beautiful moss, tall and stately, may be a pale green, but it is more often some shade of pink. Its branch leaves are rather widely spaced, erect-spreading, broadly concave, and abruptly narrowed to a short, involute point. The branch leaf hyaline cells generally have few pores on the outer surface, except near the leaf tip where they are small and elliptic and nearly always mingled with tiny, round, ringed pores, some of them scattered over cell middles. On the inner surface, the pores are rather large and numerous, round, and thin-margined. The branch leaf green cells are narrowly and equally exposed on both surfaces. The stem leaves are remarkably variable. Pores, gaps, and fibrils are generally lacking, but on the inner surface there are sometimes gaps or few to numerous large, round to elliptic, unringed commissural pores. The stem epidermis has some to many porose cells.

Illustrations: Crum (1980, Fig. P); Crum (1984, Fig. 44).

Habitat: At moderate to fairly high altitudes; 700–3000 m.

Distribution in Central America: GUATEMALA. Alta Verapaz: Standley 92577 (NY); Chiquimula: Steyermark 30989 (NY); El Progreso: Sharp 2801 (NY, MO); Huehuetenango: Sharp 4883 (MO); Zacapa: Steyermark 43257 (NY). EL SALVADOR. Santa Ana: Watson ES-0038 (MO). HONDURAS. Comayagua: Allen 11006 (MICH, MO, TEFH); Cortés: Allen 14058 (MICH, MO, TEFH); Lempira: Allen 11223 (MICH, MO, TEFH); Morazán: Olson 84-48 (MO); Olancho: Allen 12751 (MICH, MO, TEFH). COSTA RICA. Alajuela: Stork 3358 (MO); Cartago: Crosby & Crosby 6181 (MO); Heredia: Dodge 6075 (NY, DUKE); Limón: Davidse et al. 28654 (MO); Puntarenas: Herrera 3520 (MICH, MO); San José: Crosby 10889 (MO). PANAMA. Chiriquí: Antonio 2629 (MO).

World Range: Mexico; Central America; Caribbean, Western and Northern South America.

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Sphagnum meridense (Hampe) C. Müll., Syn. Musc. Frond. 1: 9 1848. S. acutifolium var. meridense Hampe, Linnaea 20: 66. 1847.

? Sphagnum platycladum C. Müll., Flora 70: 417. 1887.

Sphagnum costa-ricense Warnst., Bull. Herb. Boissier 2: 401. 1894.

Sphagnum tricladum Warnst. ex Card., Repert. Sphagnol. 199. 1897, nom. nud.

Plants tall, loosely tufted in soft, deep mounds, pale green to bright pink; cortical cells in 2–3 layers, the outer layer with pores at the upper ends of many or few cells; wood cylinder yellowish to pinkish. Stem leaves 1.5–2 mm long, oblong-ovate, broadly concave-acute; border rather strong above, not or slightly broadened at base; hyaline cells not or rarely 1-divided above, sometimes divided toward the leaf base, usually without fibrils or pores but exceedingly variable, on the outer surface often with membrane pleats but no pores or gaps, sometimes more or less fibrillose near the apex, on the inner surface without pores or gaps or sometimes with 1–5 irregularly round or rounded-elliptic, unringed commissural pores. Branches in fascicles of 5–6 (2–3 spreading); cortical retort cells differentiated. Branch leaves rather widely spaced and loosely erect-spreading, deeply but broadly concave, 1.3–2 mm long, broadly oblong-ovate or elliptic, gradually narrowed to a short, involute-concave point (more concave, narrower, and more abruptly short-pointed when moist), bordered by 1–3 rows of linear cells; hyaline cells slightly convex on the inner surface, somewhat more so on the outer, on the outer surface often with membrane pleats and near the leaf apex usually with few to numerous (3–8) very small, round or elliptic, ringed pores in ends or corners, sometimes also on cell middles, and usually a few larger but inconspicuous, elliptic corner pores in median and lower portions of the leaf, on the inner surface with 3–8 large, round, distinct but unringed pores at ends and corners and along the commissures; green cells in section lenticular, equally exposed on both surfaces because of thickened cell ends.