Flora of North America species comparison

6–12(–20) cm, simple, densely matted with wooly whitish to light-brownish tomentum.

loosely to densely leafy distally, bracteate proximally, rhizoidous at base or rarely wooly-tomentose throughout.

2–5(–6) mm, erect to closely appressed when dry, erect-spreading when moist;

sheath oblong-rectangular, brownish, ± abruptly contracted to the blade;

blade narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, flat, with sharply infolded margins;

marginal lamina 6–7 cells wide, 1-stratose, entire to finely crenulate above, membranous and transparent, abruptly infolded and enclosing the lamellae and overlapping towards the apex;

costa toothed abaxially towards the apex, short-excurrent as a short, reddish brown awn;

lamellae bluntly crenate in profile, 5–8 cells high, the marginal cells in section pyriform, thick-walled, ending in a thickened knob, end cells of lateral lamellae ovoid and scarcely thickened at the apex;

sheath cells 45–80 × 7–10 µm, elongate-rectangular (5–7:1), narrower toward the margin;

cells of the marginal lamina transversely elongate, shorter and obliquely oriented towards the margins, very thick-walled and colorless.

with differentiated sheath and blade;

sheath entire, hyaline-margined, often highly nitid (glossy), with a well-developed hinge-tissue at the junction of sheath and blade;

marginal lamina narrow, plane or erect, sharply toothed with stout, unicellular teeth, or entire, broadened and ± sharply inflexed, enclosing the lamellae;

costa short-excurrent or prolonged as a long, spinulose awn;

lamellae numerous, closely-spaced, the marginal cells in section distinctly differentiated, pyriform, flat-topped, or retuse, smooth.

2–4 cm, yellowish to reddish brown.

solitary.

dioicous;

perichaetial leaves somewhat longer than the stem leaves, ending in a slender awn.

dioicous;

male plants with conspicuous rosettes formed by the broadly overlapping, apiculate perigonial bracts, commonly innovating and producing several successive male inflorescences per shoot;

perichaetial leaves typically long-sheathing, the sheath broadly hyaline-margined, with a weakly-developed and greatly abbreviated blade.

2–3 mm, short-rectangular to almost cubic (1–1.5:1), brownish, sharply 4-angled and prismatic, suberect, becoming horizontal when ripe;

peristome 200–230 µm, divided to 0.8, the teeth 64, obtuse.

4(–5)-angled, often somewhat broader toward the base, alate and prismatic with knife-edge angles after the operculum is shed, reddish to purplish brown, glaucous in fresh capsules, suberect when young but becoming sharply bent at the attachment to the seta and almost horizontal;

hypophysis discoid, sharply delimited from the urn by a deep basal constriction;

stomata rather few and confined to the constriction;

exothecial cells bulging-mammillose, often transversely elongate, with a sharply defined, circular or slit-like pit in the outer wall;

operculum umbonate, with a short beak;

peristome teeth 64, pale, single, with a thin vertical keel and delicate spur-like projections in the inner face;

epiphragm thin and delicate, remaining attached to the peristome teeth, the margin thicker and dissected into pendent lobes alternating with the peristome teeth.

dirty white to light brown, enclosing the capsule.

with a densely interwoven, matted felt of hairs, enveloping the whole capsule and entwined beneath.

7–9(–15) µm.

small, smooth (minutely echinulate with SEM).