Sphagnum Sphagnum Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as "peat moss". Accumulations of "Sphagnum" can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16–26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions. Hence, as sphagnum moss grows, it can slowly spread into drier conditions, forming larger mires, both raised bogs and blanket bogs. These peat accumulations then provide habitat for a wide array of peatland plants, including sedges and
Type (biology) species of the section ... After studying the diverse forms, I came to consider them as belonging to the one and the same specific type. In botanical nomenclature, a "type" ("typus", "nomenclatural type"), "is that element to which the name of a taxon is permanently attached." (article 7.1) In botany a type is either a specimen or an illustration. A specimen is a real plant (or one or more parts of a plant or a lot of small plants), dead and kept safe, "curated", in a herbarium (or the equivalent for fungi). Examples of where an illustration may serve as