Broom Moss

Dicranum scoparium (X.) Hedw. Fundam. 2: 92. 1782
Bryum scoparium L-. Sp. PI. 1117. 1753.
Dicranum pallidum C. Mull. Syn. 1: 359. 1848. Not D. pallidum Weber & Mohr, 1807.
Dicranum mexicanum Schimp.; Besch. Mem. Soc. Sci. Nat. Cherbourg 16: 164. 1872.
Dicranum Howellii Ren. & Card. Bot. Gaz. 14: 93. 1889.
Dicranum angustifolium Kindb.; Macoun, Bull. Torrey Club 17: 86. 1890.
Dicranum canadense Kindb.; Macoun, Bull. Torrey Club 17: 87. 1890.
Dicranum Kindbergii Paris, Index Bryol. 356. 1895.
Dicranum scopariiforme Kindb. Eur. & N. Am. Bryin. 193. 1897.
Dioicous: male plants minute, attached to tomentum of the fertile stems, or large and in more or less separate tufts : fertile plants in extensive, compact, mostly glossy-green tufts, with tomentose stems up to 10 cm. high: stem-leaves usually curved-secund, lanceolate■subulate, sub tubulose above, up to about 9 mm. long and 1.5 mm. wide, rarely undulate, serrate about one third down the margin; leaf -blade smooth on the back; costa not quite percurrent, up to 120 p wide near the base and one seventh the width of the leaf, with more or less prominent, serrate wings on the back above, rarely nearly smooth, in cross-section below showing 5-8 guide-cells with stereid-bands on either side, the band on the dorsal side more or less interrupted with larger cells; leaf-cells pitted and elongate throughout the blade, the median about 12 /x wide and usually 2-4 times as long, the alar reddish-brown, not extending to the costa; inner perichaetial leaves nearly as long as the stem-leaves, with a clasping base either abruptly or gradually narrowed to a smoothish or serrulate point of variable length: seta solitary, yellowish or reddish, usually about 2.5 cm. long: capsule short-cylindric, about 3 mm. long, curved, nodding, smooth or somewhat furrowed when dry, with a conic-rostrate lid nearly as long; exothecal cells with thickened walls, from square to elongatehexagonal on the incurved side and 20-25 /* wide, longer and narrower on the convex side; stomata roundish, about 35 n in diameter and mostly in two rows near the base of the capsule; annulus wanting; peristome-teeth 100-150 # wide at the base, vertically striate, mostly divided more than one half down into 2, sometimes 3, reddish, papillose forks: spores papillose, up to 24 y.
in diameter.
Type locality: Europe.
Distribution: Newfoundland to Alabama; Alaska to Mexico; Guadeloupe (C. S. Parker J 182, in herb. Mitten) ; also widely distributed in Europe and Asia.