Sphagnum pulchrum Warnstorf 1900

Sporophytes are uncommon in Sphagnum pulchrum. With its distinctive broad and strongly 5-ranked branch leaves, It is one of our most easily recognized species.

Plants moderate-sized to robust, often quite dense and compact; green, brownish green, golden brown to dark brown; capitulum flat-topped and not especially 5-radiate. Stems green to dark brown; superficial cortex of 2 layers of enlarged, moderately differentiated cells. Stem leaves triangular to triangular-lingulate, 0.9-1.1 mm; appressed to spreading; apex apiculate, acute or narrowly obtuse, appressed to spreading; hyaline cells nonseptate and efibrillose. Branches straight to more typically curved, typically stout and blunt ended; strongly 5-ranked, leaves not much elongate at distal end. Branch fascicles with 2 spreading and 2 pendent branches. Branch stems green but often reddish at proximal end, with cortex enlarged with conspicuous retort cells. Branch leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 1.4-1.8 mm; straight to often subsecund; weakly undulate and slightly recurved; hyaline cells on convex surface with 1 pore per cell at apical end of cell, on concave surface with round wall thinnings in the cells ends and angles; chlorophyllous cells triangular to triangular-ovate in transverse section, very well-enclosed within concave surface. Sexual condition dioicous. Spores 25-28 µm; roughly papillous on both surfaces; proximal laesura more than 0.5 the length of the spore.

Sphagnum intermedium var. pulchrum Lindberg in R. Braithwaite, Sphagnac. Europe, 81, fig. 25g. 1880

Sphagnum pulchrum (Lindb.) Warnst. Bot Centr. 82 : 42. 1900. Sphagnum intermedium pulchrum Lindb.; Braithw. Sphag. 81. 1880.
Plants normally robust, generally strongly tinged brown or purplish-brown. Woodcylinder yellow-brown; cortical cells differentiated, in 2-3 layers, of varying size, the outer cells quadrilateral, longer than wide, without fibrils or pores: stem-leaves small, triangular, strongly concave, abruptly involute-pointed at the apex, the border narrow at the apex, broadening rapidly below until filling nearly all of the leaf-breadth toward the base, the walls of its cells strongly pitted; hyaline cells short but narrow, not divided, fibrils rarely present in the apical part of the leaf, the membrane on the inner surface largely resorbed in the cells of the central and apical parts, the gaps decreasing in size toward the sides and base, or passing in the side-regions to longitudinal membrane-pleats, on the outer surface entire: branches in fascicles of 4 or 5, 2 spreading, their cortical cells in a single layer, the retort-cells large with a conspicuous neck: branch-leaves somewhat undulate when dry, commonly five-ranked when moist, or sUghtly subsecund, ovate, very concave, abruptly contracted to a cuspidate involute toothed apex; border entire, of 4-6 rows of narrow cells; hyaline cells fibrillose, narrowly linear-rhomboidal, in the basal portion 10-12 times as long as wide, shorter above to 5-6 times, the pores on the inner surface round with faint contours in the comers of cells, 3-6 per cell, on the outer surface with small ringed pores in the comers of the cells and along the commissures, most numerous near the apex of the leaf, 2-5 per cell: chlorophyl-cells in section triangular with the base exposed on the outer surface, the apex of the triangle frequently reaching only half the distance to the inner surface of the leaf or even less; hyaline cells hardly convex on the outer surface, on the inner one sixth to one fifth of the diameter of the cell.
Dioicous. Fruiting branches erect; perichaetial leaves deeply pigmented brown, ovate to obovate with an involute-pointed apex not infrequently rent, and a strong border of narrow cells with pitted walls, stronger in the apical half, the rest of the leaf with both kinds of cells, the hyaline ones narrow without fibrils or divisions, the membrane intact on the outer surface, with larger or smaller gaps on the inner surface in the cells of the apical part: capsule brown: spores brown-yellow, 25-28 /i in diameter, slightly granular-roughened.
Type locality: Sweden.
Distribution: Labrador to New Jersey; also in northern Europe.

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

It has almost cosmopolitan distribution.