Drepanocladus capillifolius
(Warnst.) Warnst.Dioicous. Loose wefts, yellow-green. Stems mostly 30–60 mm long, pinnate or irregularly branched, brown, with sparse red-brown rhizoids. Leaves wide- to erect-spreading, often twisted when dry, falcate or almost straight, ovate to triangular or broadly rounded-triangular, concave; apex acuminate; costa strong, excurrent, rarely ending a few cells below apex; margins entire or denticulate; laminal cells vermicular, 25–80 μm long, 4–10 μm wide, smooth, shorter at insertion; alar cells quadrate to short-rectangular, 10–50 μm long, 7–20 μm wide, not conspicuously inflated, forming a transversely triangular group extending 2/3–4/5 the way to costa; stem leaves 1.8–2.7 mm long, 0.45–1 mm wide; branch leaves smaller, 0.9–1.3 mm long, 0.25–0.4 mm wide. Sporophyte not seen.
Recoded in Victoria from a swamp near Nelson in the far south-west. Also NSW and ACT. Canada, USA, Europe and temperate Asia.
Australian populations have been identified as the similar D. longifolius that has been broadly defined as occurring in both northern and southern hemispheres. However, analyses of chloroplast DNA sequences have established that the Australian and northern Hemisphere populations belong to a separate lineage with the existing name D. capillifolius that is more closely related to other species (Saluga et al. 2018). Drepanocladus longifolius occurs in Antarctica, some Subantactic Islands and South America.
Saluga, M.; Ochyra, R.; Zarnowiec, J.; Roniker, M. (2018). Do Antarctic populations represent local or widespread phylogenetic and ecological lineages? Complicated fate of bipolar moss concepts with Drepanocladus longifolius as a case study. *Organisms Diversity & Evolution * 18: 263–278.