Lapland Yoke Moss

Plants small to medium-sized, up to 3.5 cm high, dark green or yellowish brown, in dense tufts. Stems erect, simple or forked, radiculose below. Leaves strongly curled and contorted when dry, narrowly oblong- to linear-lanceolate; margins irregularly and narrowly recurved below, entire or indistinctly sinuate above; costa single, strong, ending near the leaf apex, papillose on both sides; upper laminal cells rounded-hexagonal, 8–10 µm in diameter, thick-walled, very opaque, densely warty-papillose; lower cells slightly larger, rectangular, thin-walled, hyaline or pale yellowish, smooth; alar cells not differentiated. Autoicous. Perichaetial leaves greatly enlarged, entirely sheathing, broad at base, short-pointed at the apex. Setae up to 2 mm long, as long as or shorter than perichaetial leaves; capsules shortly emergent, 1.0–1.3 mm long. Spores 9–12 µm in diameter, usually smooth or nearly so.

Distribution: China, Japan, Central Asia, Europe, Greenland, Iceland, and North America.

Habitat: on moist rocks.

Amphidium sublapponicum (C. Müll.) Broth., Nat. Pflanzenfam. 1(3): 460. 1902. Zygodon sublapponicus C. Müll., Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital. n. sér. 5: 186. 1898. Type. China: Shaanxi, Taibai Shan (Mt.), Giraldi 1209 (holotype H). Synonymized by C. Gao (1994).