Sphagnum strictum Sull., Musci Appal. 201. 1845.

Sphagnum mexicanum Mitt., J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 12: 624. 1869.

Plants pale brown or yellowish, generally in low, dense, small tufts; cortical cells in 1–3 layers, without pores; wood cylinder yellow-green. Stem leaves very small, bluntly deltoid, scarcely bordered; hyaline cells not divided, without fibrils or pores, sometimes with membrane pleats in a few apical cells, on the inner surface with an irregular membrane gap in each cell near the leaf apex occupying nearly the entire cell. Branches usually in fascicles of 5 (2 spreading); cortical cells in 1 layer, each ending in a pore. Branch leaves squarrose-spreading, ovate, involute-concave above and ending in a broad, truncate apex, more or less denticulate along a resorption furrow toward the apex; hyaline cells convex on the inner surface, on the outer surface toward the leaf apex with 2–6 large, round or round-elliptic, non-ringed pores at the commissures, becoming more numerous and more or less ringed below, on the inner surface with 2–4 elliptic, ringed pores especially in corners and often in 2's or 3's at adjacent corners; green cells in section narrowly triangular, often enclosed on the inner surface.