Dicranum Moss

Dicranum rhabdocarpum Still. Mem. Am
Acad. II. 4: 172. 1849.
Dicranum scoparioides Schimp.; Besch. Mem. Soc. Sci. Nat. Cherbourg 16; 164. 1872.
Dioicous: male plants in more or less separate tufts, more slender than the fertile, branching, with rather large flowers scattered along the stems, the antheridia about 0.6 » long: fertile plants in compact, pale glossy-green tufts, with stems 3-4 cm. long and leaves erect-spreading, the points irregularly flexuous or straight when dry, never crispate and rarely subsecund: stem-leaves about 5 mm. long, ovate-lanceolate, acute, serrulate on the margins about one fourth down; costa pale, vanishing below the apex, serrulate on the back above, just above its broadened base about 50 p, wide and one tenth the width of the blade or less, in cross-section near the middle showing about 4 guide-cells with stereid-bands above and below of about 2 rows of cells not always well differentiated; alar cells -golden -brown or hyaline, more or less inflated, not extending to the costa, the cells above elongate with unequally thickened walls pitted nearly to the apex, the median ones about 8 fx wide and 40-60 x long; inner perichaetial leaves narrowly costate, rather gradually narrowed to a nearly smooth, slender point scarcely one half the broader part in length: seta yellow or finally reddish, solitary, up to 2.25 cm. high: capsule erect, cylindric, 3-3.5 mm. long, furrowed when dry, with exothecal cells, except near the mouth, elongate with unevenly thickened slightly sinuous walls ; annulus wanting ; lid with its erect beak nearly two thirds the length of the capsule; peristome-teeth reddish-brown, vertically striate, divided or perforate often three fourths down, the inner articulations prominent : spores slightly rough, up to 1 8 fi in diameter.
Type locality:' Colorado.
Distribution: Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico.