Montana Field Guide

Plants: Acrocarpous, growing in open to crowded clumps of erect shoots, green, or green with yellow tones, turning somewhat brownish with yellow tones over time, not shiny. Stems single or occasionally branched a little, 7-20 mm in height, possessing a central strand; rhizoids occurring at the bottom of the stem, somewhat red (FNA 2007).

Leaves: Slightly curled, twisted, or wavy when dry, generally spreading up to ca 45 degrees, lance-shaped and sometimes very slender with a longitudinal groove from the sunken costa, the apex slender and dull to obtuse; margins widely curved back and downward in the proximal half, saw-toothed in the upper half, sometimes smooth at the leaf tip; costa extending to the leaf tip (FNA 2007).

Leaf Cells: Lamina with several bi-stratose cells dispersed in the upper half, the cells with thick walls; upper laminal cells square or nearly so to short and quadrangular, becoming both wider and longer proximally, with thinner walls; distal margins and sometimes a few adjacent cells bi-stratose; costa in X-section with guide cells in 1 row, a dorsal stereid band (FNA 2007), and several stereid cells to the inside of the guide cells (Lawton 1971).

Fruit ripens about mid-spring to mid-summer (FNA 2007).

Found on damp soil with a sandy or sometimes a clay texture, with habitats such as clay slopes, road banks, or sandstone bluff fissures. Elevation:330-1640 feet (FNA 2007).

Dioicous. Perichaetial bracts enveloping the stem somewhat (FNA 2007), about 5 mm in length (Lawton 1971). Seta vertical, red, 10-20 mm in height, carrying the capsule beyond the perichaetial bracts. Capsule upright, straight or a little bowed, deep brown to russet, 1.5-3.2 mm in length, the base sometimes a little larger around than the rest of the capsule; peristome single, the 16 teeth split almost to the bottom, creating 2 thread-like divisions, these filaments spiraled when dry, red, strongly covered with papillae or tiny sharp points. Calyptra like a draping hood (FNA 2007), smooth (Crum & Anderson et al., 1981).