Sphagnum cuspidatum Sphagnum cuspidatum Sphagnum cuspidatum, the feathery bogmoss, toothed sphagnum, or toothed peat moss, is a peat moss found commonly in Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, the eastern coast of the United States, and in Colombia. "Sphagnum cuspidatum" is brown to greenish brown in color with narrow green stems. Individual plants are slender and weak-stemmed. They are moderately sized compared to other peat mosses. Aquatic forms are flaccid and plumose giving a feathery appearance, whereas the emergent forms are much more compact. Branches are spread in quite obvious sickle shaped patterns, giving the capitulum a twisted appearance. The capitula is often green
Moss Antarctica and Russia, and a case is put forwards for Carboniferous mosses. It has further been claimed that tube-like fossils from the Silurian are the macerated remains of moss calyptræ. Mosses also appear to evolve 2–3 times slower than ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Recent research show that ancient moss could explain why the Ordovician ice ages occurred. When the ancestors of today's moss started to spread on land 470 million years ago, they absorbed CO from the atmosphere and extracted minerals by secreting organic acids that dissolved the rocks they were growing on. These chemically altered rocks in turn reacted