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Sphagnum australe
Sphagnum australe is a species of mosses. Sphagnum australe grows in very wet areas, and are able to capture large quantities of water inside its plant. Sometimes, it forms large mounds when it occurs in a rainforest. It is the closest form of Sphagnum cristatum.

Sphagnum australe is found in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania within Australia. Sphagnum australe also occurs in South America, southern Africa, and New Zealand. Sphagnum australe does normally not appear in the northern portion of the North Island. In Tasmania, over 300mm stem length of Sphagnum australe has been examined. Such Sphagnum australe with a long stem has not been found in New Zealand.

Description
Sphagnum australe has dark red capsules, carried on a white stalk (pseudopodium).

Plants are whitish-green to pale brownish-green and sometimes are weakly tinged brownish-purple. Fascicles are composed of 4-5 branches, and the pendent branches slender and pale. The stem of Sphagnum australe goes up upward at its apice, growing from 10mm to 200mm. The stem of Sphagnum australe is composed of 2-4 layers of cortical cells and outermost cell layer which is a lack of fiber (21-27 μm diameter). Stem leaves are usually pendent, sometimes erect (especially for the fascicle bases), lingulate, variably eroded, bordered shape. Branches spread up to 12-20mm in size, with 4 or 5 fascicles with 2 larger spreading and 2 or 3 slender pale pendent branches. The adult branch leaves of Sphagnum australe are broadly ovate-lanceolate, acute to obtuse or rarely broadly rounded at apex, and the size is 2.1- 3.0 x 1.2- 2.0 mm. Branch leaves concave and inrolled at margins with a few apical teeth.

Taxonomy
Sphagnum australe is in the genus Sphagnum, a group of Sphagnaceae family, commonly is referred to as a "peat moss". The genus contains between 100 and 300 accepted species of Sphagnum in the world. Sphagnum australe was first formally described by J.D Hooker in 1859.

Cellular structure
Sphagnum australe has a huge variation in the development of pores in stem cortical cells. Most of the samples have stem cortical cells with a single pore at the top of the cell, but some cells are epolose and others have up to three holes in the vertical row. The ratio of epolose/monopore/porous cortical cells is different between groups. The number of pores and the degree of the generation of fibers found on the surface of the stem and leaf vitreous cells are also greatly different.

Growth
Almost 65 percentage cover of Sphagnum australe is able to restore in the reseeded parts of the plot after 1 year, compared to the initial year percentage (25%). And after 2 years, the percentage becomes constant around 70%. In contrast, not-re-seeded parts have only 5% cover after 2 years, and it rarely has chances for full recovery.