Clay Earth Moss

Archidium alternifolium (Dicks.) Schimp. Syn. 28. 1860
Phascum allernifoUum Dicks. PI. Crypt. Brit. 1: 1. 1785.
PUuridium globiferum Brid. Muse. Recent. Suppl. 4: 10. 1819; Bryol. Univ. 2: 162. 1827.
Phascum globiferum Bruch, Flora 8: 281. 1825.
Archidium phascoides Brid. Bryol. Univ. 1: 747. 1827.
Phascum Bruchii Spreng. Syst. 4; 142. 1827.
Archidium tenerrimum Mitt. Jour. Linn. Soc. 8: 17. 1864.
Archidium I.escurii Aust. Bull. Torrey Club 6: 144. 1877.
Archidium Raienelii Aust. Bull. Torrey Club 6: 145. 1877.
Archidium longifolium l,esq. & James, Proc. Am. Acad. 14: 134. 1879.
Plants perennial in close low tufts; stems simple at first, only 5 mm. high, later forming branches among the perichaetial leaves or from the axils of the lower leaves, occasionally 10-15 mm. in length, from which arise the fruiting branches the following year when they have become decumbent and rooting, bearing small bract-like leaves which are lanceolatechannelled and subulate, up to 1.5 mm. long, mostly entire or serrulate, the costa percurrent, the basal cells oblong-rectangular, 18-27 >i wide by 94-135 /i long; perichaetial leaves much longer, 2-2.5 mm. long, the base broader, concave, with more hyaline, elongate basal cells, the margins more or less serrate, and the costa excurrcnt into a subulate point. Paroicousantheridia in axils of the upper leaves, naked or with two small bracts: calyptra small, fugacious: capsules 1-3, globose, immersed in the perichactium, sessile with a very short, thick seta immersed in and easily separating from the swollen cup-shaped vaginule, variable in size, 0.25n SO mm. in diameter; walls thin, breaking irregularly: spores few, usually 16, large, 100
180 m or at most 200/1 in diameter, irregularly tetrahedral, granular, yellow becoming darkbrown and full of oil-globules, maturing from September to April.
Type locality: Wet ground, England.
Distribution: Throughout the eastern United States from New York to Florida; also in northern and central Europe.