THE EUROPEAN SPHAGNACEE 921 
The varieties are based in the first place on the colour of the 
tufts; and the forms on the length, direction, and position of the 
branches. 
Var. fuscescens Warnst. in Bot. Ver. der Prov. Brand. xxx. 
1888, 108. Tufts brown throughout, almost entirely without any 
admixture of green, the capitulum sometimes reddish brown. 
Var. fusco-viride Warnst. in Bot. Gaz. 1890, 135. Colour of the 
tufts greenish in the upper part, brownish below; sometimes the 
brown predominating, sometimes the green. 
Var. pallescens Russ. apud Warnst. in Schrift. der Naturf.-ges. 
in Danzig, N. F. Bd. ix. Ht. 2, 1897, 154. Colour a pale brown, 
mixed at times with more or less green. 
Var. virescens Russ. apud Warnst./.c. Colour in the upper part 
greyish-green, below pale brownish or whitish. 
7. S. acurmrotium Russ. & Warnst. apud Warnst. in Bot. Ver. 
der Prov. Brand. xxx. 1888, 112. 
Syn. S. acutifolium Ehrh. Pl. Crypt. Exsice. No. 72, ex parte. 
Exsicc. Braithw. Sphagn. Exsice. Brit. Nos. 34, 35. 
Plants in respect to colour and habit exceedingly variable. 
Tufts looser, or denser, taller or shorter, pale green or yellow- 
green, pale red, rose- or purple-red, or variegated in colour. Stems 
sometimes slender and delicate, sometimes as strong and robust as 
S. Russowii. 
Wood-cylinder pale or yellowish-green, very frequently red, but 
never brown : 
Stem-cortex 8-4-layered, composed of thin-walled cells of medium 
t pores 
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jig 
thinner pendent branches, which are sometimes closely appressed 
to the stem, sometimes less so, according to the damper or drier 
character of the habitat. Branches longer or shorter, and varying 
much in their direction; leaves always arranged all round the 
border very narro g 
erecto-patent, never distinctly in five rows, never secund or 
squarrose; when dry without metallic lustre; im the middle of 
the leaf near the base with a longitudinal fold; membranes of 
the hyaline cells with delicate plicw. Pores on the inner surface 
of the leaf i upper part almost exclusively in the upper and 
lower cell-angles, small and strongly ringed; in the middle and 
