Rhacocarpus purpurascens
(Brid.) ParisMats on rock, bronze to glaucous green toward the tips. Stems (20–) 60–80 (–100) mm long, subpinnately branched, red-brown, without rhizoids. Leaves spreading when moist, appressed with reflexed tips when dry, stem leaves differing from branch leaves; cells in apical half linear-rhomboidal or fusiform, 12–75 μm long, 6–12 μm wide, densely granulate; basal cells longer but not strongly differentiated, 60–100 μm long, 8–12 μm wide, densely granulate; alar cells quadrate to short-rectangular, reddish, smooth, forming an auriculate group. Stem leaves ovate to oblong, acuminate apex, 1.5–3 mm long, (0.6–) 0.8–1 mm wide, concave; base oblong-panduriform; apex acute to acuminate, with a golden or castaneous hair-point; margins denticulate near base of hairpoint, otherwise entire, strongly inrolled below hair-point, recurved near base, with c. 3–4 rows of narrower, smooth, pigmented cells forming a distinct reddish border from base to mid-leaf or nearly to base of hair-point. Branch leaves smaller, mostly c. 2/3 length and width of stem leaves, less strongly decurrent. Setae 6–20 mm long, yellow- or red-brown, smooth. Capsules ellipsoid or broadly obovoid, nearly globose after dehiscence, erect, 2–2.5 mm long. Operculum obliquely-rostrate from conic base, 2–2.5 mm long.
Wim, Gold, CVU, GGr, NIS, EGU, WPro, HSF, HNF, VAlp. In rocky mountainous areas (e.g. Mt Arapiles, the Grampians, Mt Langi Ghiran, Cathedral Range, Mount Buffalo, Wilsons Promontory) in seepages and moist sites among outcrops. Also WA, QLD, NSW, ACT and Tas. New Zealand, South Africa, Central and South America and the Caribbean.