Montana Field Guide

Plants: Acrocarpous. Growing in open to crowded clumps of erect shoots, shiny, green or green with yellow tones. Stems 2-8 cm tall; rhizoids pale to russet and thickly covering the stem with woolly matting (FNA 2007).

Leaves: Ranging from curved and pointing to one side of the stem to straight and upright, occasionally curled and twisted a little, lance-shaped and cupped below, keeled and also and tube-like from the infolded margins above, and folded longitudinally (FNA 2007), not wavy (Lawton 1971), the leaf tip acute, 5-12 mm in length, 0.8-1.5 mm in width; margins coarsely saw-toothed above, smooth below; costa nearly reaching or slightly surpassing the leaf tip, with 2 (seldom 4) dorsal dentate crests running from ca mid-leaf almost to the leaf tip or seldom fairly smooth (FNA 2007).

Leaf Cells: Lamina 1 cell-layer thick, the cells smooth, the cell walls between cells lacking bulges; distal laminal cells wavy and porose; lower laminal cells quadrangular and very thin, porose, longer than the cells above; alar cells distinct, inflated, the alar region occasionally reaching the costa and 2 cell-layers thick; costa in X-section with weak ventral and dorsal stereid bands, guide cells in 1 row, the cells of the ventral epidermal layer not distinct and those of the dorsal layer discontinuous from a few large cells of the dorsal crest inserted amongst them (FNA 2007).

Fruit ripens in spring (FNA 2007).

Although characteristics of the perichaetial leaves are the most significant in distinguishing this species from D. scoparium, the following vegetative features are also helpful. D. scoparium has leaves that are sometimes shiny (other times dull) and shorter (5-8.5 mm) rather than always shiny and longer (8-10 mm), shorter upper laminal cells, and typically 4, seldom 2, dorsal saw-toothed crests on the costa rather than mostly 2, seldom 4, as in D. howellii (FNA 2007).

Decaying wood, humus, soil, occasionally bogs. Elevation: 70-1971 feet (FNA 2007).

Dioicous, sometimes small males growing on female plant rhizoids, or female and male plants similar in size and mingling or occurring in somewhat separate clumps. Inner perichaetial bracts only partially enveloping the stem, slowly tapering to form an acumen. Seta single or occasionally 2 in a perichaetium, 15-40 mm tall, russet or yellow. Capsule bowed, tilted to level, sometimes longitudinally lined when dry, 2-3.8 mm in length; peristome of 16 teeth, separated ca halfway down into 2 lobes (seldom 3), russet, with papillae above. Calyptra hood-like, hairless, sheltering much of the capsule, falling away easily (FNA 2007).