Sphagnum may have a number of different "Sphagnum" species. Individual peat moss plants consist of a main stem, with tightly arranged clusters of branch fascicles usually consisting of two or three spreading branches and two to four hanging branches. The top of the plant, or capitulum, has compact clusters of young branches. Along the stem are scattered leaves of various shapes, named stem leaves; the shape varies according to species. The leaves consist of two kinds of cells; small, green, living cells (chlorophyllose cells), and large, clear, structural, dead cells (hyaline cells). The latter have the large water-holding capacity. "Sphagnum", like
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