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The Extinguisher Mosses

Genus ENCALYPTA, Schreb.

The species of the Genus Encalypta grow on bright-green cushions on rocks or on the ground.

The leaves are linear, spatulate or tongue-shaped and are covered with tiny double-pointed projections. The cells toward the base are thin and transparent, while those toward the apex are small and opaque with leaf-green.

The spore-cases are borne on long solid pedicels; they are regular, erect and ribbed or twisted when dry with conic and long-beaked lids.

The veils are large, cylindrical and bell-shaped, longer than the spore-cases, tapering at the apex and sometimes fringed at the base. This character suggested the generic name, from the Greek veiled. The peristome is variable, having no teeth or a single or double row. The spores are large and beset with small projections.

In all there are thirty-nine species, sixteen being found in North America.

The Extinguisher Mosses with Fringed Veils, Encalypta ciliata, Hedw.

Habit and habitat.--In loose bright or pale-green tufts on shaded rocks and soil; not rare.

Name.--The specific name ciliate, from the Latin cilium, an eyelash, refers to the fringed base of the veil.

Plant (gametophyte).--Stems 1/2 to 2 inches high, thick, covered with rooting filaments, simple or sparingly branched.

Leaves.--Soft, large, crowded, recurved-spreading, oblong, egg-shaped or tongue-shaped, slightly concave; apex short, taper-pointed with a tiny sharp point; margin wavy; vein pale-yellow, vanishing below the apex or passing into it; cells, toward the base loose, red, the marginal of several rows narrower and paler.

Habit of flowering.--Male and female flowers on one plant (monoicous).

Veil (calyptra).--Straw-colour, descending far below the base of the spore-case, bordered at the base by lance-shaped solid white or orange segments.

Pedicel.--Long; yellow or pale-red.

Spore-case.--Cylindrical, smooth, slightly constricted under the mouth when dry, the neck short and indistinct.

Lid (operculum).--Conic, with a long slender beak.

Teeth (peristome).--Rarely absent, single, of 16 narrowly lance-shaped red teeth, sometimes divided into two irregular segments, connivent when dry, incurved when moist.

Distribution.--Mountain regions of New England, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific slope, Europe and Africa.