Aongstroem's Sphagnum

Sphagnum aongstroemii can usually be easily recognized by its combination of pale green color and truncate, toothed branch leaves.

Plants medium-sized, brownish green to yellowish brown tinged with blue, in dense tufts. Stem cortex in 3–5 layers, hyaline cells thin-walled, without fibrils; central cylinder yellowish brown. Stem leaves 1.0–1.4 mm × 0.6–0.8 mm, ligulate, flat, broader at base, narrowed from the middle of leaves, rounded and slightly lacerate at the apex; borders differentiated, narrow above the middle, clearly widened below the middle, ca. 1/3 leaf width at base; hyaline cells divided in the upper parts of leaves, without fibrils and pores. Branches in fascicles of 3–5. Branch leaves ca. 1.5 mm × 1.0 mm, imbricate, loosely arranged, broadly ovate with broad, blunt and dentate apex, margins slightly involute; borders consisting of 1–3 rows of linear cells; hyaline cells linear-rhomboidal, with small, short-elliptic, ringed pores at the ends and at corners on the dorsal surface, pores enlarged near the leaf base; with a few medium-sized ringed pores in cell ends in the upper parts of leaves on the ventral surface, few to none near the base; green cells in cross section elliptic, centrally located, equally exposed on both surfaces. Dioicous. Spores deep brownish, papillose.

Stems green. Branch leaves very concave, truncate and toothed.

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

Habitat: on ground under coniferous forests or wet grasslands in high mountains.

Sphagnum cymbifolium var. cordifolium C. Hartman, Handb. Skand. Fl. ed. 3, 261. 1838