Ravenel's Pleuridium Moss

Pleuridium ravenelii Aust. Bull. Torrey Club 6: 142. 1877
Plants gregarious, yellowish-green, glossy; stems erect, simple, short, only 2-3 mm. high: leaves erect, the upper ones incurved, not secund, the lower crowded, appressed, much smaller, only 1-2 cm. long, ovate-lanceolate, concave, tapering into a subulate, canaliculate or conduplicate awn; margins incurved, obsciu'ely serrulate; costa broad, nearly filling the awn, not toothed on the back and ending in the serrulate apex, in cross-section with 3-5 large ducts, with narrow stereid-bands above and below, and slightly enlarged epidermal cells in the awn, the lamina of one layer of cells; basal cells thick-walled, oblong; perichaetial leaves erect, not secund, 2-3 mm. long, broader at the base, often coarsely and irregularly toothed at the summit of the base where it suddenly contracts into the deeply channeled, slightly serrate awn. Paroicous, either with 5 or 6 naked antheridia in the axils of the perichaetial leaves or with 2 or 3 enclosed in small bracts: seta short, 0.25 mm. long: calyptra minute, less than 0.5 mm. long: capsules immersed, about 0.5-0.6 mm., rarely 1 mm. long, bright-yellow, ovoid, minutely apiculate, the apical cells not enlarged ; walls with hexagonal cells ; base stomatose : spores yellow, rough, warty, not spinose, 27-37 ^ in diameter, maturing from March to June.
Type locality: South Carolina.
Distribution: On light sandy soil from Massachusetts to South Carolina.