Sphagnum cuspidatum battlefield to prevent infection. Sphagnum is also used to decorate hanging baskets, as a packing material in the shipping industry, and in some parts of Africa it is even used to pad cushions and mattresses. Since the moss is capable of holding many times its weight in water, it is useful as a potting material for new plants since it provides consistent moisture. It can also be used in conjunction with decaying organic matter as an effective medium for germinating seeds. Some species of Sphagnum moss in general have been used as a fuel source in temperate climates. Sphagnum moss
Plant functional type Plant functional type Plant functional types (PFTs) is a system used by climatologists to classify plants according to their physical, phylogenetic and phenological characteristics as part of an overall effort to develop a vegetation model for use in land use studies and climate models. PFTs provide a finer level of modeling than biomes, which represent gross areas such as desert, savannah, deciduous forest. In creating a PFT model, areas as small as 1 km are modeled by defining the predominant plant type for that area, interpreted from satellite data or other means. For each plant functional type, a number of