Identification notes
Widely distributed, this is a plant of low, often grazed, turf in damp heaths, fens and flushes. It is sometimes found in chalk grassland. At first glance it would be easy to pass it over for Dicranum scoparium. The leaves are strongly undulate, but D. scoparium can have undulate leaves although the leaf tips are rarely as ‘kinky’ as in D. bonjeanii. The nerve is narrower than in D. scoparium and the leaf apex is less channelled so that laminal cells are clearly visible on each side of the nerve at leaf tip. The rarer D. polysetum also has undulate leaves but is a larger, more robust species.
Under the microscope the narrower nerve, less than 70µm, will usually separate it from Dicranum scoparium. It has 2 (rarely more) low and barely toothed lamellae that run down the abaxial surface of the nerve, in contrast to the usually four taller and more toothed lamellae in D. scoparium.
Read the Field Guide account
