E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Species description:
Species name indicating the swampy habitat.

Reproduction:
Sporophytes infrequent, maturing in summer.

Comments:
S. palustre and its close relatives form the most valuable horticultural used peat. In the province S. henryense is probably more common than S. palustre.

Distinguishing characteristics:
The swollen divergent branches with in­curved inflated leaves overlapping each other, leaf tips rounded, plus light green to brownish-green colour and dark green stems, are usually enough to separate this species, but several others very closely resemble it.

Habit:
Tall, pale green to brownish turfs of closely to loosely packed plants with conspicuously swollen, divergent branches and heads of branches bearing broadly ovate leaves.

Similar Species:
S. henryense is virtually impossible to distinguish from S. palustre except on technical microscopic features. S. papillosum tends to show rather dull green, leafy shoots but can be distinguished con­vincingly only on microscopic characters (papillae on the inner faces of cell walls). S. austinii forms orange-brown, relatively condensed tufts (microscopically the comb-like ornamentation of the walls of the elon­gate cells is distinctive). S. magellanicum is usually pale to wine-red, a colour absent in S. palustre. S. compactum, a species of subalpine cliffs and lowland peatland is frequently orange but can be troublesome to distinguish from S. palustre without microscopic examination (S. com­pactum lacks fibril thickenings in the outer cells of the stem).