English: Spiky feather moss; Spiky-leaved moss; Pointed-leaved fairbill moss; Pointed-leaved beak moss.
German: Spitzblättriges Schönschnabelmoos.
Clades:
Brachytheciaceae,
Brachytheciales,
Bryanae,
Bryophyta,
Plants.
Region: Europe, Asia, North Africa.
Habitat: shady, fresh or moist, alkaline sites, mainly on forest soil of nutrient-rich deciduous forests; also on rotten wood, on trunk bases as well as on stones and walls; plains to the lower mountain forests.
BotanyGrowth form: pleurocarp
Moss; vigorous; forms loose, green, shiny and often quite extensive lawns up to more than 5 centimetres high.
Stems: tree-like branched, individual branches often flagellately elongated. Leaves: stem leaves are around 2 mm long, sparsely protruding, narrowing from a broadly ovate base into a sharp point, longitudinally lobed, with flat or narrowly rolled down below and serrated all around, 30 to 100% longer than wide, leaf tip the leaf margins have an angle of 15 to 45 degrees; branch leaves are slightly smaller and narrower, about 1.5 to 1.8 millimetres long, ovate and gradually acuminate; with simple rib up to about 3/4 of the leaf length, with the end of the rib usually emerging as a spine on the back of the leaf; leaf cells are linear and thin-walled in the middle of the leaf, shorter, somewhat broader, moderately thick-walled and dotted at the base; the leaf wing cells are rectangular.
Capsule: dioecious; moderately often; spore maturation throughout the year, but mainly in the winter half-year; sporophyte has a red, smooth seta that grows to about 2.5 centimetres long and bears an inclined to horizontal, curved, cylindrical spore capsule.
Spores: finely granulated and 11 to 14 µm in size.