Alpine pillow moss
| Alpine pillow moss | ||||||||||||
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Grimmia alpestris |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Grimmia alpestris | ||||||||||||
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The alpine pillow moss ( Grimmia alpestris ) is a species of plant from the genus Grimmia in the family of the Grimmiaceae . The species was discovered by Johann Christoph Schleicher in Switzerland on St. Bernhard and first described in 1807.
features
The alpine pillow moss forms blue-green to blackish, gray-shimmering, densely cushion-shaped and 1 to 1.5 centimeters high lawns. The species is dioecious, male and female plants mostly occur in separate lawns. The female flowers have blunt inner bracts without paraphyses. The stems are fork-shaped and upright, at the base of the plants there are root-haired shoots. The leaves are soft and dry, adjoining roof tiles, they curve back moderately when moist and protrude when moist. The lower leaves are small. The upper leaves are lanceolate from their elliptical base and taper into an almost straight, shorter or longer hair, are keel-like, hollow and have a flat, almost upright edge at the tip and, further up, a stem-round protruding at the back, narrower at the base Rib. A cross-section of the rib shows only 2 abdominal cells and slightly bulging back cells. The lamina in the tip and some longitudinal stripes and rows of marginal cells further down are bilayered. The leaf cells are larger than in Grimmia montana , rather thick-walled, not indented, square on top and measure 10 to 12 micrometers, downwards also more; at the base they are rectangular and measure 15 to 20 micrometers. The hood is cap-shaped, large and extends to the middle of the urn. The capsule is located on the 2.5 to 3 millimeter long, straight, brownish-yellow seta, which is surrounded at the bottom with a slit ochrea. It is erect, elongated ellipsoidal to almost cylindrical, narrows at the base and is smooth and brown, there is no differentiated ring. The lid is short, bluntly conical, yellow-red, a quarter as long as the urn and, when empty, wrinkled lengthways. The peristome teeth are deeply inserted, purple-red and broadly lanceolate. They are divided up to about the middle in 2 to 3 legs connected by cross members, rarely they are only two to three columns at the top. The spores measure 9 to 12 micrometers, are yellowish and finely crumbled. They ripen in June.
Occurrence
Grimmia alpestris can be found on rocks (with the exception of limestone cliffs) above the tree line. In Europe it is found in the Alps at altitudes of more than 1500 meters as well as in Norway and the Sierra Nevada in Spain. The species is also found in British Columbia, Oregon, Utah and the Rocky Mountains.
swell
- Georg Roth: The European Mosses. Volume 1: Kleistocarpic and Acrocarpic Mosses to the Bryacean. Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1904, ( available online ).
