Sphagnum wulfianum Girgensohn 1860

The sporophytes of Sphagnum wulfianum are moderately common. This is the most dry-growing species in North America, typically growing in association with Sphagnum centrale, S. girgensohnii, S. russowii, and S. squarrosum. It is easily recognized as the only species that regularly has more than six branches per fascicle. The Lycopodium clavatum-like growth habit and conifer swamp habitat along with the strongly 5-ranked branch leaves make it even easier to recognize in the field.

Plants rather robust, brownish green, tinged with brownish red when dry, in loose carpets. Stem cortex in 2–4 layers, hyaline cells small, thick-walled, without fibrils and pores; central cylinder reddish brown. Stem leaves 0.6–0.7 mm × 0.4–0.5 mm, oblong-triangular, slightly concave, blunt or cucullate pointed, slightly fringed at the apex; borders narrow, evenly differentiated throughout; hyaline cells narrowly rhomboidal, sometimes 1(–2) divided, without fibrils or pores, with irregular membrane gaps in the upper cells, membrane pleats in the lower cells on both surfaces. Branches in fascicles of 6–12, with 3–6 spreading, capitula large. Branch leaves 1.1–1.3 mm × 0.5–0.6 mm, widely recurved when dry, erect when moist, ovate-lanceolate; margins involute-concave above, gradually narrowed to a blunt, dentate apex; hyaline cells narrowly rhomboidal, fibrillose, with small, ringed, elliptic pores at the corners and ends, also near the commissures on the dorsal surface, with few rounded, unringed pores at the ends and corners on the ventral surface, the inner walls adjacent to green cells often faintly papillose; green cells in cross section narrowly elliptic, with a narrow, truncate, nearly equal exposure on both surfaces. Dioicous. Sporophytes not seen.

Branch leaves with chlorophyllous cells often with faint papillae on interior walls.

Distribution: China, Russian Far East and Siberia, Europe, Greenland, and North America.

Habitat: in bogs and sparsely treed woodland.

Sphagnum wulfianum Girg. Arch. Nat. Dorpat 2: 173. 1860
Plants small to rather robust, green or variously tinged with reddish or brown. Woodcylinder hard, reddish-brown; cortical cells of the stem in 2-4 layers, rather small, but sharply set ofl from the cells of the wood-cylinder, their walls moderately thick, the outer cells quadrilateral, mostly longer than broad, without fibrils or pores: stem-leaves small, triangularUngulate, slightly concave, involute to an abrupt point at the apex, the border entire, narrow; hyaline cells narrowly rhomboidal, wider near the apex, without fibrils, often divided, their membrane on the outer surface showing irregularly shaped membrane-gaps in the upper part of the leaf, passing below into longitudinal membrane-pleats, on the inner surface similar; branches in large fascicles of 6-12, 3 or more stronger, spreading, the others delicate, closely applied to the stem, their cortical cells in a single layer, without fibrils; retort-cells differentiated, often a second shorter one above the first, the neck short: branch-leaves with sharp spreading points when dry, narrowly ovate-lanceolate, involute-tubulose to a sharp point, toothed across the apex, the border entire, of 2-3 rows of narrow cells; hyaline cells fibrillose, narrowly linear-rhomboidal, 10-14 times as long as wide at base, shorter above to 6-8 times, on the inner sm^ace with few and inconspicuous pores in the ends and comers of the cells, rarely up to 3-4 per cell, on the outer surface with small ringed pores along the commissures, 4-8 per cell in the upper half of the leaf, generally fewer in the lower half; chlorophyl-cells truncately elliptic in section, with equal exposure on both surfaces or slightly broader on the outer surface, the lumen lenticular, central; inner walls of hyaline cells where overlying chlorophjd-cells very finely papillose; hyaline cells very slightly convex, more so on the outer surface where hardly more than one eighth of the diameter of the cell.
Dioicous, sometimes monoicous. Antheridial branches sometimes produced in great profusion; antheridia in catkins near the end of long spreading, otherwise normal branches; antheridial leaves essentially as others, but more strongly pigmented and with fibrils reduced or lacking in the hyahne cells of the basal portion. Fruiting branches short, erect; perichaetial leaves ovate with an abruptly pointed involute tip toothed across the apex, the border entire, of narrow cells, the rest of the leaf of both kinds of cells except the tip, where the hyaline cells are suppressed and the cell-walls more or less pitted; hyaline cells without fibrils or membrane-gaps: capsule dark-brown: spores brownyellow, 18-20/1 in diameter, finely granular-roughened .
TypB locality: Livonia. Russia.
Distribution: Eastern Canada southward to Connecticut; New York; Minnesota; Vancouver Island; reported from Greenland; also in northern Europe and reported from Siberia.

Sphagnum wulfianum is a species of moss belonging to the family Sphagnaceae.

It is native to Northern Hemisphere.