Common smoothcap moss (Atrichum undulatum)

  • Mchy Moss

Hair-moss family (Polytrichaceae)

 

Moss growing singly or forming loose carpets dark green in colour. Stems of heights 2-6 cm, straight, non-branched, with leaves arranged around it. Leafless at bottom, but with leaves of ever greater size progressively further upwards. Leaves lanceolate, length to 10 mm, strongly folded crosswise, double-toothed in upper part. Bristle reddish, length 2-4 cm. Capsule cylindrical, bent over, 4 mm in length. A species of nutrient-rich broadleaved forests, e.g. oak-lime-hornbeam forest, thermophilous oakwoods and riparian forest. Often colonises bare clay soil.

 

Descriptions devised by the team at the Independent Department of Forest Botany, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, i.e. L. Witkowska-Żuk, K. Marciszewska, W. Ciurzycki, A. Obidziński and P. Zaniewski.