Montana Field Guide

Plants: Acrocarpous, the tufts open to closely packed, green, lime-green or brown, shiny. Stems upright, usually forked above, 2.5-7 cm, densely covered in wooly reddish-brown rhizoids that originate from branch bases on the stem (FNA 2007).

Leaves: Straight, upright-spreading when moist (FNA 2007). Moist and dry plants look similar with no crisping or waviness (Lawton 1971), (4-)5.5-8(-9) mm long, 0.5-1 mm wide. Leaf is concave near the stem and becomes tubular (margins inrolled) towards the tip; the lance-shaped base narrowing into a long, awl-like point (subula); apex acute to occasionally more-or-less obtuse; margins smooth or a little serrate (with teeth that point toward apex) in the upper third; costa extending to apex or slightly beyond, 1/10 – 1/6 the leaf width at base, a little rough or smooth on the abaxial (outer) surface, lacking abaxial ridges, a X-section revealing one line of guide cells and 2 clear stereid bands which run almost to the apex, the epidermal cell layer distinct, seldom several cells of the adaxial (inner) layer enlarged (FNA 2007).

Leaf Cells: Walls of leaf cells bulge little or not at all; laminal cells smooth; alar cells in 2 layers, distinct, not reaching the costa; lower leaf cells are long and have pores that usually connect to an adjacent cell wall; upper leaf cells are somewhat quadrate or longer to unevenly angled and have pores (FNA 2007).

Capsules ripen in summer (FNA 2007).

Dicranum muehlenbeckii, closely related to D. spadiceum, differs chiefly in having a wider costa and being larger (Flowers 1973).

Damp soil and rock in alpine areas (Elliott 2016), including fens and lake margins (FNA 2007).

Seta single or seldom 2 in a perichaetium, 2.5-3.5 cm, yellow or yellow with reddish hues. Capsule bowed, inclined, grooved when dry, pale to deep brown, 1.5-2.8 mm (FNA 2007).