Montana Field Guide

Plants: Pleurocarpous, growing in slender interwoven mats, deep green, olivaceous, or seldom green with yellow tones, becoming brown over time. Stems thin to sizeable, catkin-like with the tips occasionally hooked upward, freely branched (FNA 2014), 1-6 cm in length (Lawton 1971), possessing a central strand; paraphyllia numerous; rhizoids borne in groups on leaves near the leaf attachment (FNA 2014).

Leaves: Lying next to the stem and overlapping when dry, spreading a little to about 45 degrees when damp, not shiny, 0.6-1 mm in length, seldom curved in sickle-like fashion, egg-shaped, narrowing suddenly to an acute leaf tip or seldom to a short acumen, without a hair-point (FNA 2014); leaf edges curved back and downward from the bottom nearly to the leaf tip or margins flat in places (Lawton 1971), smooth to finely saw-toothed above (FNA 2014); costa disappearing well before the leaf tip (Crum and Anderson et al. 1981), faintly wavy, sometimes tinged with orange. Branch and stem leaves comparable (FNA 2014), or branch leaves a bit smaller, usually with the tip finely saw-toothed (Lawton 1971).

Leaf Cells: Lower laminal cells generally shorter but otherwise resembling medial cells; medial cells square (FNA 2014), unipapillose on both surfaces (Crum and Anderson et al. 1981), the papillae short and rounded, occasionally not centered over the lumen, with thick, nonporose walls; alar cells square to somewhat long, the longer dimension crosswise to the leaf length (FNA 2014). Branch leaf medial cells square or occasionally somewhat long, papillose, the papillae of the longer cells situated distally on the cell (Lawton 1971).

Fruit ripens in mid-summer (FNA 2014).

Characterized by short laminal cells and both leaf cell surfaces with 1 centrally-located and prominent papillae (Crum and Anderson et al. 1981).

Protected or exposed stones and crags, soil, along watercourses. Occurring from mid-elevations to 11,480 feet (FNA 2014)

Dioicous. Perigonial leaves egg-shaped, smooth-margined, with 5-8 antheridia. Seta 7-25 mm tall (Lawton 1991). Capsule 0.5-2 mm in length (FNA 2014), tilted to level; exostome teeth ochre, with delicate transverse lines, slightly taller than the endostome processes; endostome processes perforate on the keel; cilia frequently rudimentary and sometimes absent (Lawton 1971).