Montana Field Guide

Plants: Acrocarpous. Growing in open clumps of erect shoots, green, sometimes yellow, usually glossy. Stems simple, 1-4 cm tall; rhizoids few near the top of the stem (FNA 2007).

Leaves: Typically strongly curved and pointed to one side, the ends curled when dry, 2-4.5 mm in length, lance-shaped, narrowing steadily to a subula; margins upright, smooth, finely saw-toothed (FNA 2007) or smooth apically; costa excurrent, the protruding awn scruffy with papillae (Lawton 1971).

Leaf Cells: Margins 1 cell-layer thick above (FNA 2007); alar cells typically brown (Lawton 1971), quite swollen, very distinct from the neighboring square cells; lower laminal cells somewhat long, smooth, occasionally pitted; upper laminal cells 2-4:1, sometimes nearly square, a little scruffy with mammillae; costa with stereid cells scarcely differing from the guide cells (FNA 2007).

The similar K. blyttii has dull leaves that are not falcate-secund. K. falcata tends to grow on level rather than vertical rock. K. starkei differs from them both with its distinctly grooved capsules when dry (FNA 2007). The sessile perigonia located close to the perichaetia is a dependable characteristic of the species (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981).

Noncalcareous stone or soil in stone fissures, often on precipitous stone faces; high elevations (FNA 2007).

Autoicous, the stalkless perigonia situated immediately beneath the perichaetia (FNA 2007). Seta 5-10 mm tall (Lawton 1971), seldom to 15 mm, yellow, darkening to deep red (Crum & Anderson et al. 1981). Capsule bowed, swollen at the base (Lawton 1971), conspicuously grooved when dry; theca 1.3-2 mm in length; peristome with 16 2-lobed teeth, the lobes reaching to mid-tooth, russet, with papillae or longitudinal grooves. Calyptra draping like a hood (FNA 2007).