THE BRYOLOGIST 



Vol. XXIV November, 192 i No. 6 



NOTES ON NORTH AMERICAN SPHAGNUM, IX 



A. LeRoy Andrews 



The Group Guspidata Lindberg (Continued)* 



21. Sphagnum Fitzgeraldi Renauld, 1884. The species was originally 

 accredited exclusively to Renauld, though Cardot later^ asserted that his name 

 should have been added as joint author. For some time after its discovery and 

 description a romantic halo hung over the plant as having been found on de- 

 caying palm-leaves in Florida. In late years it has, however, been collected in a 

 number of localities, especially in Florida, and its habitat does not appear to 

 differ greatly from those of other Sphagna in the same region. In fact Warnstorf 

 in 191 denies it species right, though he had earlier^ figured and described its 

 large spores as something quite unique among Sphagna'^. It is not at all im- 

 possible that he is right in his latest verdict that it is hardly more than a form of 

 5. trinitense C. M., that is, S. cuspidatum var. serrulatum. It is certainly a 

 derivative of this phase of S. cuspidatum and agrees with it in all its important 

 characters. It belongs, however, to a region which has evolved several independ- 

 ent species, and differs in its general macroscopic appearance and some minor 

 quantitative features in such a way that I do not feel it should be entirely relegated 

 to synonymy without further study in the field. It is for one thing a much 

 softer, more delicate plant than 5. cuspidatum normally is and is often rather 

 suggestive of some other group. This is particularly true because of the shape 

 of its leaves, which are not so slender and elongated, but short and broad, ovate 

 with broadly truncate apex, or sometimes nearly rectangular. The terminal 

 bud then becomes round or at any rate plumper than in the other forms of S. 

 cuspidatum, and is often more suggestive of a delicate form of S. suhsecundum. 

 It was doubtless for this reason that Warnstorf described it from its Alabama 

 locality as a separate species, S. Mohrianum Warnstorf, 1892, which he now 

 however also^ reduces to a variety of S. trinitense. I have seen the type material 

 of S. Mohrianum from the National Herbarium at Washington and would 



* For Notes on North American Sphagnum. — VIII, see The Bryologist 22: 45-49. Sept. 

 1919. — Ed. 



1 Repertoire sphagnologique, 295. 1897; cf. Rev. Bryol., XII, 46. 1885. 



2 Pflanzenreich 51: 218. 



3Verh. d. bot. Ver. d. Prov. Brandenburg, XXXII, 178, fig. 54-58. 1891. 

 *Cf. also Bot. Gaz., XV, 222f. 1890. 

 5 Pflanzenreich 51: 219. 1911. 



The September number of The Bryologist was published February 15, 1922, 



