Montana Field Guide

Plants: Pleurocarpous, growing in loose, thick or slender mats, green or green with yellow tones, becoming brown over time. Stems ends mostly straight, the tips seldom hooked upward, seldom catkin-like, freely branched (FNA 2014), sometimes reaching 5 cm (Lawton 1971), possessing a central strand; paraphyllia numerous; rhizoids borne in groups on leaves near the leaf attachment (FNA 2014).

Leaves: Shiny, lying close together near the stem to nearly upright when dry, spreading to about 45 degrees when damp, 0.9-2 mm in length (FNA 2014), 0.3-0.5 mm in width (Lawton 1971), lance-shaped, sometimes also tending toward ovate, tapering slowly to a long, narrow acumen half the length of the leaf, without a hair-point, usually only the apex curved in sickle-like fashion, if at all; leaf edges curved back and downward below to near the acumen, smooth to finely saw-toothed above; costa extending to the leaf tip, sometimes tinged with yellow, not wavy (FNA 2014). 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 somewhat long and diamond-shaped to long, slender and wavy, sometimes with both ends tapering, quite papillose, the papillae typically close to the far end of the cell rather than centered, the walls nonporose and thick to moderately thick, seldom with cell ends overlapping and protruding; alar cells square to somewhat long, the longer dimension crosswise to the leaf length (FNA 2014).

Fruit ripens in mid-spring through mid-summer (FNA 2014).

Small to larger branches of small trees and bushes, beside watercourses. Occurring from mid-elevations to 6890 feet (FNA 2014).

Dioicous. Seta 5-10 mm tall (Lawton 1971). Capsule upright, 1-3 mm in length (FNA 2014); exostome teeth ochre with fine, level lines and ridges, taller than the endostome processes; cilia absent (Lawton 1971).