Plant Guide > Mosses and Lichens > Mosses > Genus Tortula > Tortula Princeps Moss

Tortula Princeps Moss

Tortula princeps, De Not.

Habit and habitat.-In tall, loose, red-brown tufts on rocks, walls, and sometimes trunks of trees. A fine moss, easily known by its interrupted sterns and dense, broad, rust-coloured leaves.

Name.-The specific name princeps, the Latin for "chief" refers to the striking character of the moss. It is described under the name of Barbula Muelleri, Bruch and Schimp., in Lesquereux & James Manual.

Plant (gametophyte). -Stems repeatedly interupted by new growths with root-like fibres at their bases.

Leaves.-Soft, dense, broad and rust-coloured in interrupted rosettes along the stem and at the summits of the branches; apex obtuse; margin rolled back to below the middle; vein red, extending beyond the apex in a slender transparent, faintly spiny hair-point; cells at the base loose, rectangular and transparent.

Habit of flowering.-Male and female organs in the same flower (synoicous).

Veil (calyptra).-Split on the side.

Spore case. -Cylindrical, brown, arched like a bow.

Pedicel.-Red.

Lid (operculum). Long and conical.

Teeth (peristome).-The lower half tubular and pale, the teeth red.

Annulus.-Double.

Spores.-Mature in spring.

Distribution.-Headquarters in the Mediterranean rare in England, common in the western states of North America.