Entosthodon muhlenbergii

Detailed description

Terricolous, yellowish or green, colonial moss forming diffuse patches on damp earth in deep shade. Stems c.5 mm tall, simple. Leaves 1.5-3.2 mm long, tufted, wrinkled or little altered when dry, somewhat erect to spreading when dry and moist; lamina obovate to widely obovate-spathulate, concave, obtuse or subacute, apiculate; margins plane slightly and bluntly serrate above by projection of the marginal cell-ends; nerve failing below apex. Cells lax, 30-140 microns long and 1.5-5.0 x 1, subquadrate, oblong, or irregularly 4-6-sided; longer and rectangular at the base; marginal cells in the upper part of the leaf in 1-2 rows narrower and often yellowish (forming a more or less distinct border). Seta 5-28 mm long. Capsule 2.5-4.0 mm long, smooth, clavate-pyriform, curved, gibbous, neck well defined (occupying fully 1/2 of capsule length), wide-mouthed, without annulus. Peristome double; the outer of 16 reddish-brown,lanceolate-subulate teeth, somewhat oblique, variably striolate on the dorsal face and trabeculate on the ventral; inner peristome of 16 opposed paler processes, shaped like teeth. Operculum scarcely convex. Calyptra inflated.