English: Flat-brocade Moss.
German: Kriechende Breitringmoos.
Dutch: Kwastjesmos.
Clades:
Pylaisiadelphaceae.
Region: Eurasia, Northern America, parts of Asia, North Africa, Central America.
Habitat: on bark, especially in damp woodland; orchards, hedgerows; rapidly colonizes trees and becomes locally abundant; on wide range of trees, Salix, Alnus; on tree trunks, most frequent higher on the main trunk, or on larger, inclined branches; not on twigs or dead, rotting wood; lowlands to the lower mountain ranges; neutral to moderately acid substrates; in light to shady, humid places; rarely on conifers; rarely on limestone-free rock; moderately heat-loving.
BotanyMoss; deciduous; young plants form neat, regular, prostrate patches that grow tightly appressed to the bark; older plants have more erect branches, and produce branchlets; forms glossy green or often brown-green to golden-brown, moderately dense turf.
Stem: slender; closely pinnately branched; prostrate; shoots grow to a length of ± 1 cm; deciduous branchlets, produced in clusters from the leaf axils, as main method of propagation.
Leaves: glossy; mostly dark green, or sometimes golden; 1 to 1.5 mm long, and tend to point slightly in one direction; stem and branch leaves are hardly different; densely arranged, moist, erect, dry, roof-tiled, ovate, sharply and shortly pointed, hollow, wrinkle-free, with entire margins, up to 0.5 millimetres wide and up to 1.5 millimetres long; leaf margins are narrowly curved upwards; vein is absent or only short and doubly indicated; cells of the leaf centre are linear, at the leaf tip and at the leaf margins shorter and broader; wing cells are square and distinctly different from the other cells.
Capsules: rare and similar to those of
Pylaisia polyantha, but with a more beaked lid; erect, cylindrical; straight or somewhat curved; cap is obliquely beaked; seta is orange to reddish brown, up to 15 millimetres long; spores are finely papillose, 12 to 20 micrometres.