Campylopus brevipilus

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Identification notes

Although not a great rarity, this species is quite local and unprepossessing and is easily overlooked, or, with its golden-brown colour and silky appearance mistaken for Dicranum scoparium or another similar-looking species.

It’s a very variable moss and because its hair-point can be long, short or barely there, it’s always best to check leaves under the microscope. Fortunately, it is immediately distinct from most lookalikes in their basal areolation of sharply defined patches of thin-walled hyaline cells just above the auricles. These follow an oblique line in the same fashion as Tortella species. Other good microscope characters are the wormlike lower green cells and, especially, the presence of stereids on both sides of the costa.

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Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland

View distribution from the BBS Atlas 2014