Description

General - yellow-green, drying brown, 3 - 9 cm tall; stems erect, usually unbranched, with reddish brown, fuzzy covering.

Leaves - lance- to egg-shaped, sharply pointed, 3 - 5 mm long, twisted when dry.

Sporophytes - salk red-brown, to 4 cm tall, twisted when dry; capsule reddish brown, inclined to almost erect, to 4 mm long, curved, strongly grooved.

Habitat

Wet coniferous forests, swamps, fens and cold, wet, disturbed sites; very common and widespread in Northwestern Ontario's boreal forest; cosmopolitan.

Notes

Tufted moss often grows mixed with golden fuzzy fen moss in treed fens. It is hard to mistake the bright yellow-green patches of this moss in its cool, moist habitat. Sometimes the yellow is almost incandescent - hence the common name 'glow moss'. The reddish fuzzy stems contrasting with yellowish leaves, are characteristic of this species. Tufted moss often reproduces asexually by producing small clusters of green, leafy-looking brood bodies on the tips of short green stalks. The genus name Aulacomnium, from the Greek aula, 'furrowed', and mnium, an ancient name for a moss, means 'furrowed moss', and refers to the grooved capsules.

Return to Top of Page