B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 34. 2003 (Budapest, 2003)

Szurdoki, Erzsébet: Peat mosses of North Hungary

In North Hungary it lives only in the Zemplén Mts (Table 1 ). On the northern slope of Lackó-hegy, near Kishuta, very small, only a few dm

2-sized patch of S. quinquefarium grows on the humus-covered rock, in the shade of old beech trees (SZURDOKI et al. 2000). This occurrence was reported earlier as a fairly large, of several m

2-sized patch of S. capillifolium, but later revised as S. quinquefarium (VAJDA 1933-78, Soó 1938,BOROS 1953,1964,1968,1969, SIMON 1977a, b). This isolated small patch of the species is very sensitive and endangered. The species abundance has decreased in the past decades, and there is a real danger of becoming extinct from this region. Sphagnum capillifolium (Ehrh.) Hedw. Normally the patches of S. capillifolium in Hungary are compact, but sometimes lax and variable in height. It is pale green coloured with red flacks or sometimes the upper part is overall red. Characteristic features are the more or less hemispherical capitula, the two spreading branches per fasciculum, the non 5-ranked branch leaves, the fibrils in the upper part of the stem leaf and the relatively large (10-15 pm) abaxial pores of the branch leaves (DANIELS and EDDY 1985). In Hungary, similarly to S. quinquefarium, it lives mainly on wet, acidic forest soils, and appear only rarely in mires (e.g. in the intermediate mire near Kőszeg called Alsó-erdő, SZÖVÉNYI 1998). S. capillifolium was also reported from North Hungary (Table 1). On the basis of publications and herbarium material it lived in Kis-tó (JUHÁSZ 1963, DULAI and VOJTKÓ 1991), in Nagy-Mohos (BOROS 1924, 1926, ZÓLYOMI 1931), in the Futyó-völgy (BAKALÁR et al. 1975) and in Csipkés-kút (SIROKI 1961 ). Nowadays it lives in Nagy-Mohos and Kis-Mohos and it has a recently discovered local population in the Zemplén Mts. In Kis-tó it was not found in the past decade. In Nagy-Mohos and Kis-Mohos, S. capillifolium mainly lives in the central part of the bogs, but relatively far from the water table and sometimes it forms small hummocks. The small patches of the species can be found in Carici lasioearpae-Sphagnetum, Eriophoro vaginati-Sphagnetum recurvi and in Salici cinereae-Sphagnetum recurvi (ODOR et al, 2000, SZURDOKI et al. in press). In the Zemplén Mts it has a relatively small, 0.5 m

2-sized patch on the floor of Vaccinium-Betula heath near Füzér. This occurrence is similar to the habitat of Sphagnum patches of the forests of Vendvidék and Őrség (SZURDOKI et al. 2000). S. capillifolium is still rare in this region, but more abundant in the western part of the country. All North Hungarian populations are very small. S. capilli-