(syn. Sphagnum auriculatum Schimp., S. lescurii Sull., S. subsecundum var. auriculatum (Schimp.) Lindb., S. subsecundum auct. Brit. pro parte non Nees in Sturm).
*2: Helman Tor, 1882, RVT (TRU) (Paton 1969a: 709).
The most widespread Sphagnum and often common, tolerating variety of mesotrophic habitats but local and mainly in pools in the more oligotrophic mires. Characteristic of wet places on heathland with short vegetation, where it is often an early colonist on bare peat following fires or heavy grazing, but where like other sphagna it tends to be excluded as ungrazed or unburnt vegetation becomes tall, persisting longest along tracks or pathways and in other more open areas. Also in a variety of other wet, base-deficient sites including mires (on damp often flushed surfaces or in shallow pools), flushes (including those above and occasionally on sea-cliffs), wet pastures with Juncus effusus, wet carrs of Grey Willow, ditches, acidic flushes, trackside ditches, edge of a reservoir and edges of soft-water pools and streams (where often shallowly submerged). Most often in unshaded places, but tolerates moderate shade inside degenerating mire (e.g. at base of tall Molinia caerulea tussocks), Grey Willow carrs, deciduous woodlands or conifer plantations. Substrates are more or less acidic and usually of wet peat or other humic materials, but it will occur among rocks or on mineral soils in more or less permanently wet sites. Several records from in or near old (and not so old) stone and china clay quarries, flushes below china-clay spoil tips and one from hollows among old metalliferous-mine spoil. Found in quantity floating in stream north of Crow's Nest, with loose Scapania undulata, both evidently washed downstream following heavy rain. Common associates on heathland include Aulacomnium palustre, Calluna vulgaris, Juncus effusus, Molinia caerulea, Ulex gallii; more local associates there or in mires and pools may include Aulacomnium palustre, Straminergon stramineum, Sphagnum palustre, Sphagnum squarrosum, Sphagnum subnitens, Sarmentypnum exannulatum; small Carex spp., Eleogiton fluitans, Erica ciliaris, Eriophorum angustifolium, Hydrocotyle vulgaris, Hypericum elodes, Glyceria spp., Juncus bulbosus, J. effusus, Potentilla palustris and Schoenus nigricans.
Occasionally c.fr.: capsules dehiscing 8.