Slender Cow Horn Bog Moss

Sporophytes are rare in Sphagnum subsecundum. This species is often associated with S. angustifolium, S. centrale, S. fimbriatum, S. flexuosum, S. palustre, and S. teres. The most widespread and common species of sect. Subsecunda, it exhibits considerable phenotypic plasticity in size. However, the stem leaves are always quite small in comparison to those of similar species. See also discussions under 52. S. contortum and 55. S. inexspectatum.

Plants small to rather robust, up to 20 cm high, grayish green to often yellow or distinctly brown, in loose cushions. Stem cortex in 1 layer, hyaline cells without fibrils and pores; central cylinder rather thick, yellowish tinged with dark brown. Stem leaves 0.5–1.0 mm × 0.4–0.8 mm, rather small, triangular-ligulate or ligulate, rounded, often hyaline and lacerate at the apex; borders narrow above, somewhat widened near the base; hyaline cells rarely divided, without fibrils, or with the traces of fibrils near the leaf apex, with rounded pores along commissural rows in the upper half on the ventral surface, with a few small pores at the corners, or numerous pores at the opposite ends on the dorsal surface. Branches in fascicles of 3–5, with 2–3 spreading, branch tips curved, slender and soft. Branch leaves 1.0–1.5 mm × 0.5–0.6 mm, broadly ovate-lanceolate, strongly concave, curved-secund in the upper half, blunt and dentate at the apex; margins involute, borders narrowly differentiated; hyaline cells fibrillose, with a single, small pore at the corners or numerous pores along commissural rows near the margins on the ventral surface, with numerous small, ringed pores along commissural rows on the dorsal surface; green cells in cross section narrowly rectangular or narrow-elliptic, centrally located, exposed on both surfaces. Dioicous; antheridial branches brownish. Perigonial leaves ovate. Perichaetial leaves ovate and concave, rounded at the apex, borders wide. Spores yellow, papillose, 25–28 µm in diameter.

Plants small, slender, often wiry; green, yellow-brown or golden brown; capitulum small with terminal bud absent. Stems light brown to dark brown; superficial cortex of 1 layer of enlarged thin-walled cells. Stem leaves triangular-lingulate, 0.8 mm or less; apex entire or weakly denticulate, hyaline cells sometimes septate, efibrillose and aporose except near apex. Branches often short and blunt. Branch fascicles with 2-3 spreading and 2-3 pendent branches Branch leaves broadly ovate, subsecund, hyaline cells on convex surface with very numerous small pores (18-40 per cell) in a continuous row along the commissures, concave surface usually aporose. Sexual condition dioicous. Capsule exserted, with few pseudostomata. Spores 30-35 µm; finely papillose on both surfaces, distinct bifurcated Y-mark sculpture on distal surface; proximal laesurae more than 0.5 spore radius.

Distribution: China, Nepal, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Russian Far East, Europe, North and South America, New Guinea, Australia, and North Africa.

Habitat: in bogs and open hummocks or on wet ground in shade under forests.

Sphagnum contortum Schultz. var. subsecundum (Nees ex Sturm) Wils., Bryol. Brit. 22. 1855. Sphagnum cavifolium Warnst., Eur. Torfm. 79. 1881, nom. superfl.

Sphagnum crispum R. E. Andrus

Sphagnum subsecundum Nees ; Sturm, Deuts. Fl
Crypt. 17 : pi. 3. 1819.
Sphagnum contortum Schultz, Prodr. Fl. Starg. Suppl. 64. 1819.
Sphagnum Lescurii Sull. in A. Gray. Man. ed. 2. 611. 1856.
Sphagnum auriculalum Schimp. Mem. Sphaig. 80. 1857.
Sphagnum neglectum Angstr. Oefv. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Forh. 21: 201. 1864.
Sphagnum laricinum Spruce; Lindb. Acta Soc. Sci. Fenn. 10: 263. 1872.
Sphagnum plalyphyllum SuW.; Wamst. Flora 67: 481 . 1884.
Sphagnum rufescens Limpr.; Wamst. Hedwigia 27: 267. 1888.
Sphagnum crassicladum Wamst. Bot. Centr. 40: 165. 1889.
Sphagnum obesum Wilson; Wamst. Bot. Gaz. 15: 247. 1890.
Sphagnum plicalum Warnst. Hedwigia 30: 169. 1891.
Sphagnum dasyphyllum Wamst. Hedwigia 31: 176. 1892.
Sphagnum orlandense Wamst. Hedwigia 31: 177. 1892.
Sphagnum mobilense Wamst. Hedwigia 31: 180. 1892.
Sphagnum inundalum Russow, Arch. Nat. Dorpat 10: 405. 1894.
Sphagnum Gravelii Russow, Arch. Nat. Dorpat 10: 423. 1894.
Sphagnum simile Wamst. Hedwigia 33: 326. 1894.
Sphagnum flavicans Wamst. Allg. Bot. Zeits. 1: 205. 1895.
Sphagnum Langloisi Wamst. Hedwigia 36: 166. 1897.
Sphagnum xerophilum Wamst. Hedwigia 36: 167. 1897.
Sphagnum aqualile Wamst. Verb. Bot. Ver. Prov. Brand. 41: 31. 1899.
Sphagnum lurgidulum Wamst. Krypt.-fl. Brand. 1: 462. 1903.
Sphagnum bavaricum Wamst. Hedwigia 47: 84. 1907,
Sphagnum missouricum Wamst. & Card.; Warnst. Hedwigia 47: 93. 1907.
Sphagnum Bushii Wamst. & Card.; Wamst. Hedwigia 47: 94. 1907.
Sphagnum Franconiae Wamst. in Engler, Pflanzenreich Sphag. 310. 1911.
Sphagnum Louisianae Warnst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 322. 1911.
Sphagnum cochlearifolium Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 323. 1911.
Sphagnum bostonense Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 348. 1911.
Sphagnum novo-fundlandicum Wamst. in Engler, Pflanzenreich Sphag. 351. 1911.
Sphagnum fluilans Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 351. 1911.
Sphagnum pseudosquarrosum Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 353. 1911.
Sphagnum cordifolium Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 357. 1911.
Sphagnum Nicholsii Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 384. 1911.
Sphagnum Smithianum Wamst. in Engler, Pflanzenreich Sphag. 397. 1911.
Sphagnum Bakeri Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 414. 1911.
Sphagnum vatidum Wamst. in Engler. Pflanzenreich Sphag. 417. 1911.
Plants small and delicate to robust, very variable, green or variously tinged with shades of purplish-brown. Wood-cylinder yellowish-green to brown; cortical cells of the stem in 1-3 layers, larger or smaller, the walls thin, the outer cells quadrilateral, often as wide as long or nearly so, without fibrils or pores: stem-leaves normally small, but varying through all degrees to nearly isophyllous, triangular-lingulate or Ungulate to ovate, concave, rounded at the apex, the border narrow, slightly wider below; hyaline cells narrowly rhomboidal, shorter and wider near the apex, rarely divided, the membrane on the inner surface with irregular gaps in the cells of the immediate apex, below with longitudinal membrane-pleats, on the outer surface with membrane-pleats, fibrils lacking, the hemi-isophyllous forms approaching in all degrees the conditions of the branch-leaves both as to fibrils and pores: branches mostly in fascicles of 2-6, 2 or 3 spreading, their cortical cells in a single layer, without fibrils, the retortcells with inconspicuous necks, generally a second retort-cell above the first: branch-leaves fubsecund to regularly imbricate, not undulate when dry, normally ovate, varying on the one hand to elongate-lanceolate, on the other to short-elliptic or nearly orbicular, generally involute to the toothed apex, the border entire, of 2-3 rows of narrow ceUs; hyaline cells with fibrils, narrowly rhomboidal, 8-10 times as long as wide at the base, shorter above to 4—5 times, averaging longer or shorter with variation in the shape of the leaf, on the inner surface with a few small round pores in the angles of the cells or somewhat more numerous along the commissures, on the outer surface normally in rows like strings of beads along the commissures, strongly ringed, sometimes vestibuled or with pseudopores alone, round or elliptic, 10-20 per cell, often more, sometimes on the other hand much reduced: chlorophyl-cells in section truncately elliptic, equally exposed on both surfaces, varying to trapezoidal with broader exposure on the outer surface or almost included on the inner surface, the lumen lenticular, central or nearly so; walls of hyaline cells very slightly convex, rather more so on the inner surface, where not more than one eighth of the diameter of the cell.
Dioicous. Antheridia in catkins on spreading branches; antheridial leaves brown, as large as the normal branch-leaves, the cells of the basal part with the fibrils reduced or nearly obsolete. Fruiting branches short, erect; perichaetial leaves ovate, abruptly involutepointed, sometimes eroded at the apex, with both kinds of cells in the upper central portion, the hyaline cells usually not fibrillose but sometimes with fibrils or divisions, on the inner surface with small round gaps in the upper ends of the cells: capsule dark-brown: spores brownyellow, 25-28 Ai in diameter, finely granular-roughened.
Type locality: Germany.
Distribution: Greenland; Labrador to Florida, Louisiana, and Mexico; California to Washington; also in Europe and Asia and regarded as cosmopolitan.

Sphagnum subsecundum, the slender cow-horn bog-moss, is a species of moss in the family Sphagnaceae. It is the namesake of a species complex. The complex has a nearly worldwide distribution in wetlands, with the species proper found in Europe, eastern North America and North Africa (in the Tunisian peatlands of Dar Fatma).