Montana Field Guide

Plants: Acrocarpous. Growing in open to crowded clumps of erect shoots, green with white or grey tinges, or more yellow, less deeply colored below, shiny. Stems 1-7 cm in height; rhizoids intermingling with leaves on the stems (FNA 2007).

Leaves: Spreading to ca 45 degrees and occasionally straight to typically curved in sickle-like fashion and pointing toward one side of the stem, particularly at the top of the stem, smooth, similar in dry and moist conditions (FNA 2007), narrowly lance-shaped and subulate, nearly tubulose above (Crum & Anderson et al., 1981) to an acute leaf tip which occasionally falls away, 4-8 mm in length, 0.2-0.8 mm in width (FNA 2007); leaf edges typically finely saw-toothed from tip to mid-leaf or as far as the shoulders (Crum & Anderson et al., 1981); costa extending to the leaf tip, at the leaf bottom ca half or more of the leaf width, with lines running along its length on the dorsal surface, more prominent above, like ridges of small teeth under strong magnification (FNA 2007).

Leaf Cells: Lamina of 1 cell-layer, the cells smooth, porose below; median laminal cells square to quadrangular, longer proximally; alar cells usually brown, otherwise hyaline, swollen, reaching the costa, the alar region 1 cell-layer thick; costa in X-section with (green) chlorophyllous cells sandwiched between ventral and dorsal hyalocysts, a few green cells intermingling with the ventral hyalocysts (FNA 2007).

Fruit ripens in summer (FNA 2007).

Soil and stone in alpine areas (Lawton 1971), soil overlying large rocks and bluffs, occasionally on decaying wood. Elevation: 1310-9510 feet (FNA 2007).

Dioicous. Perigonial bracts cupped, egg-shaped, narrowing to a short acumen; perichaetial bracts wide below, long-awned. Sporophytes common. Seta usually single, spiraled when dry, 8-20 mm in length. Capsule vertical or slightly tilted, 1.5-3 mm in length (FNA 2007), ochre, sometimes slightly creased when dry (Lawton 1971); peristome with 16 2-lobed teeth, the lobes reaching to mid-tooth, russet, with longitudinal or slanted grooves below and papillae above. Calyptra is like a draping hood, smooth, shielding the majority of the capsule, falling away (FNA 2007).