University Herbarium
		University of California, Berkeley

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	photo by Wilson of Coleman 2

Plants spreading in dark green to yellow-green tufts, often prostrate with only the branch tips ascending, and with the main axes to 10 cm long. Leaves spreading to strongly spreading when moist but appressed when dry, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, broadest near the base, with acute to narrowly obtuse apices, to 4 mm long, about 3–4: 1. Median laminal cells to 10 µm wide, arranged in somewhat regular rows, isodiametric to slightly elongate along an oblique axis. Lumens of the median cells rounded due to the strong corner thickenings. Papillae arranged over the lumens on each surface, 1–2, often bifid. Basal marginal cells to 12 µm wide, isodiametric to short rectangular, pellucid and smooth, usually clustered in a small rounded and leptodermous auricle on at least one margin. Basal juxtacostal cells mostly smooth, rectangular, to 15 µm wide, 6: 1, pitted, reddish-brown or concolorous. Cells on adaxial surface of costa elongate and pitted in 1–2 rows. Margins markedly papillose crenate, recurved from base to near the apex. Costa ending within a few cells of apex, lying in a sharply defined keel. Costa cross-section nearly homogeneous but with a single layer of abaxial cells smaller than the more adaxial ones. Costa mostly 4 cells thick, and with more than 10 cells along the abaxial perimeter. Median axillary hairs with one basal brown cell, not offset from leaf insertion, to 12 cells and 500 µm long with the laterally inserted ones much shorter than the lateral ones. Rhizoids very sparsely produced at base of plant, to 30 µm in diameter at insertion, smooth, brown to pale-brown, sparingly branched. Stem cross-section without a central strand, mostly with leptodermous and hyaline inner corticals and with 1–3 layers of strongly pachydermous, red brown outer cortical cells.
    Autoicous with perigonia in leaf axils near the perichaetia. Perichaetial bracts not differentiated from vegetative leaves. Capsule immersed to somewhat emergent on a yellow to yellow brown, smooth and erect seta which seldom exceeds 1.5 mm in length. Urn pale-brown, to 2 mm long, 1.5–2: 1, erect, strongly or lightly sulcate with eight well defined ribs, lightly or not at all strangulate. Operculum conic-apiculate to short rostrate. Annulus well-defined, falling in fragments. Exothecial cells in cross-section single-layered. Exothecial cells at capsule mouth often strongly reddened, to 35 µm wide, transversely elongate with rounded lumens in up to 6 rows. Exothecial cells at middle of urn rather thick walled with lumen: wall ratio 4–6: 1, short rectangular, 2–4: 1, to 25 µm broad, strongly differentiated from ridge to valley of the sulcate capsule. Stomata phaneroporous, scattered on proximal 1/2 of urn. Exostome teeth erect to spreading when dry, seldom or never fused in pairs, pale to light yellow, to 300 µm long, lightly or not at all papillose. Endostome segments consistently absent. Calyptra campanulate, lightly covered with papillose hairs. Spores green, to 20 µm, rather coarsely papillose.

Elevation by latitude plot for Orthotrichum lyellii
   in California

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