Polytrichum Moss (Polytrichum hyperboreum)
Description
Plants small to fairly robust, green to attractive chestnut brown with age. Stems 2-6(-10) cm, simple or more commonly fasciculately branched, whitish tomentose only at base. Leaves 3-6 mm, crowded in distal half stem, erect and closely appressed when dry, erect-spreading when moist; sheath rectangular, abruptly contracted to the blade; blade linear-lanceolate, rather flat, with sharply infolded margins, channeled at the apex and tapering to the bicolored awn; marginal lamina 7-9 cells wide, 1-stratose, entire, membranous, infolded and overlapping, completely enclosing the lamellae; costa excurrent with low blunt teeth abaxially near apex, the awn coarsely spinulose at the base, brown in the basal 1/3 to 1/2, hyaline distally; lamellae 5-9 cells high, the marginal cells in section ovoid, somewhat larger than cells below, thin-walled or very slightly thickened at apex; median sheath cells 45-90 - 12-15 -m, narrowly rectangular, thin-walled; cells of marginal lamina 10-15 - 24-45 -m, thick-walled, obliquely oriented and shorter toward the margin and thin-walled. Sexual condition dioicous; perichaetial leaves elongate, with hyaline lamina and long, tapering awn. Seta rather short for plant size, 1.2-3 cm, reddish. Capsule 2.3-3 mm, ovoid-rectangular (1.2-2:1), somewhat broader at base, sharply 4(-5)-angled, erect, becoming inclined to horizontal when mature; peristome 150-230 -m, divided to 0.6, the teeth pale brownish, acute. Spores 15-17 -m.Open sandy or stony ground, ridges, moraines, and open tundra, and in deep masses on stream banks and margins of lakes and ravines; low to moderate elevations (0-1500 m); Greenland; Nfld. and Labr. (Labr.), N.W.T., Nunavut, Que.,Yukon; Alaska; n Europe (Scandinavia); n Asia (Russia).
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Bryophyta
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Class: Bryopsida
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Order: Polytrichales
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Family: Polytrichaceae
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Genus: Polytrichum
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