Plant Guide > Mosses and Lichens > Mosses > Genus Diphyscium > Leafy Diphyscium Moss

Leafy Diphyscium Moss

The Leafy Diphyscium, Diphyscium foliosum, Mohr.

Habit and habitat.-Dark-green, widely tufted; growing on clay soil and shady banks along roads, also on rocks.

Name.-From the Latin foliosus, leafy.

Plant (gametophyte).-Simple with short stems.

Leaves.-Strap-shaped, thick, or curled in various directions when dry, vein (costa) present; margin roughened with minute projections above and sometimes with a few distinct teeth, cells small and containing leaf-green.

Leaves at the base of the spore-case.-Ovate lance-shaped, membranous, and without leaf-green; vein excurrent, forming a bristle point almost as long as the blade of the leaf.

Habit of flowering.-Male and female flowers on separate plants, (dioicous).

Veil.-Acute, conical, covering the lid.

Spore-case. -Immersed in colourless leaves; swollen on oneside, ovate, lanceshaped, yellowish-green.

Pedicel (seta).-Very short.

Lid (operculum).-Conical, acute.

Teeth (peristome).-Double, the outer short, triangular, grainy, and with transverse bars, often perforated in the middle, pale-yellow, purple at the apex; the inner membranaceous, and forming a blunt cone of twisted folds.

Spores.-Small, mature in summer. Distribution,-Europe, Asia and North America.