Montana Field Guide

Plants: Acrocarpous (Vitt 1988). Growing in upright clumps, sometimes shiny, brilliant- to yellow-green, becoming straw-colored with time. Stems usually 1-2 cm tall (FNA 2014), occasionally forking below the apex (Lawton 1971), occasionally thickly covered with brown rhizoids when old (FNA 2014).

Leaves: Green, or occasionally yellow-tinged when young, soft and somewhat loosely arranged (FNA 2014), hardly contorted when dry, upright and spreading a little when hydrated (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981), 1-3 mm in length (FNA 2014), 0.5-0.7 mm in width (Lawton 1971), lance-shaped (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981) to egg-shaped and deeply cupped; margins smooth (FNA 2014), typically flat above (Lawton 1971), sometimes a little rolled back and downward below (mostly when dry) (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981), borderless; base extending down the stem only slightly (FNA 2014); leaf tip acute or somewhat obtuse (Lawton 1971); costa extending to or a little shy of the leaf tip, brown or sometimes tinged with yellow (FNA 2014).

Leaf Cells: Basal cell row uncolored, the transition to proximal laminal cells sudden; proximal cells short-quadrangular, the area occasionally sprinkled with square cells; upper and middle cells fine-walled, 6-sided (FNA 2014) to rhomboidal (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981) and elongated in line with the costa; margins of 1 cell layer (FNA 2014).

Fruit ripens springtime to summertime (FNA 2014).

Calcareous soil or soil-covered rock in moist to wet conditions (FNA 2014), such as along stream banks, around springs, on seepage areas of bluffs (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981). Elevation: 0-5910 feet (FNA 2014).

Dioicous. Sporophytes rare (FNA 2014). Seta 1-2 cm tall, russet (Lawton 1971). Capsule brown, pear-shaped, 2-3 mm in length, somewhat ascending to drooping; peristome double; cilia long and transversely ridged (FNA 2014).

Specialized vegetative reproduction by tubers growing on axillary rhizoids from the leaves, the tubers pinkish; seldom occurring. Although this form of reproduction has been observed for this species in Europe, it has not been verified in North American plants (FNA 2014).