Plant Guide > Mosses and Lichens > Mosses > Genus Amblystegium

Genus Amblystegium

HYPNUM: Sub-genus AMBLYSTEGIUM

The species of the Sub-genus Amblystegium vary in size from minute to large and robust and vary in colour from bright yellow-green to dark dull-green. The stems are prostrate, creeping, decumbent, ascending, or erect. The male and female flowers are usually on separate plants.

The stems are usually tender and soft, but are occasionally rigid. They are repeatedly branched, commonly irregularly so, with the branches more or less erect.

The leaves spread in all directions. They are narrowly lanceshaped to broadly egg-shaped, concave, or flat, never eared at the base and never with the cells narrowly linear. The base may or may not grow downward on the stem. Vein absent or prominent, margins entire or serrate.

The spore-cases are oval to cydrical, symmetrical or unsymmetrical, erect to horizontal and usually constricted under the mouth when dry. The base tapers into a large or small collum. The colour varies from uniformly purple or brown through two shades to pale throughout.

The peristome is normal, with usually 2 to 4 cilia, although in a few cases they are absent or rudimentary. The generic name from the Greek for; blunt, and; a cover, refers to the character of the lid, which is convex or conic, usually bluntly pointed, rarely sharply pointed. The annulus consists of from 1 to 3 rows of cells. The calyptra is small and falls early.

Sixteen species are known in North America, ten of them being found in both America and Europe.

Amblystegium Varium Moss