Sphagnum fuscum

Sphagnum fuscum, the rusty bogmoss or rusty peat moss, is a peat moss found commonly in Norway and Sweden and scattered across North America, the United Kingdom and southern to eastern Europe. It is brown to greenish brown with slender brown stems, and individually it is less robust than other peat mosses, but it packs into compact hummocks with thread-like branches interwoven. The leaves along the stem are tongue-shaped, while those along the branches are pointed and lance-shaped. In the sporophyte stage it has a short stalk of about 1 to 2 millimetres and a brown capsule of about 1 to 1.5 millimetres. It prefers older, drier bogs, and in bogs dominated by black spruce it forms extensive ground cover. The moss is circumpolar, lives mainly in boreal forests and marshlands and in colder climates, and can colonise high elevations. Loss and development of wetlands has put it at high risk in Germany and vulnerable in Switzerland, and its habitats are protected across Europe. Isotope ratios in the cellulose of its stems are used as indicators of past summer temperature and winter precipitation, and it was historically used as an antimicrobial wound filler.