Image of Mexican pleuridium moss

Description:

On sandy soil in chaparral, Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara, County California, March 2007. This photograph was was taken at the site where this moss was found in the United States for the first time. We were on a Spring Bryophyte outing and visited a place where sterile plants of what turned out to be this taxon had been seen a month earlier by Paul Wilson and others. The fertile condition, as seen here, enabled these plants to be identified as Pleuridium mexicanum, new to the Untied States. See The Bryologist 110(3):510-513. 2007. The dark mat growing under these moss stems is a small liverwort