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Piper polytrichum (Piper polytrichum)

Description

The Polytrichum genus has a number of closely related sporophytic characters. The scientific name is derived from the Ancient Greek words polys, meaning "many", and thrix, meaning "hair". This name was used in ancient times to refer to plants with fine, hairlike parts, including mosses, but this application specifically refers to the hairy calyptras found on young sporophytes. There are two major sections of Polytrichum species. The first - section Polytrichum - has narrow, toothed, and relatively erect leaf margins. The other - section Juniperifolia - has broad, entire, and sharply inflexed leaf margins that enclose the lamellae on the upper leaf surface.; Pacific Islands (New Zealand); Australia; Antarctica.Variety alpinum is widely distributed across northern North America, growing in thick masses in crevices and ledges on moist, shaded rock outcrops, also common at all elevations in the Arctic, on tussocks in open tundra, stony banks, and outcrop ledges. In Nunavut, it is known from Bathurst Island and Ellesmere Island. Variety arcticum has traditionally been the repository for plants with cylindric capsules (as opposed to the smaller, ovoid capsules of var. septentrionale) and probably comes closest to being -typical- Polytrichastrum alpinum. The common expression of P. alpinum in eastern North America has a distinctive aspect, tall and gracile, with slender, subtubulose leaves, and elongate, slender, distinctly curved and inclined capsules (G. E. Nichols 1937), and has no exact counterpart among the traditionally recognized varieties of the species. Polytrichum alpinum var. brevifolium has a more northerly distribution and is smaller in all its parts, but has the toothed leaves and cylindric capsule of the typical form.

Taxonomic tree

  • Domain: Eukarya

    • Kingdom: Plantae

      • Phylum:

        • Class: Magnoliopsida

          • Order: Piperales

            • Family: Piperaceae

              • Genus: Piper