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Polytrichum
Also called Bird Wheat, Hair Moss, Haircap Moss, Pigeon Wheat, Haircap Mosses
Polytrichum is a genus of mosses — commonly called haircap moss or hair moss — which contains approximately 70 species that have a cosmopolitan distribution.
The genus Polytrichum 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. A similar naming related to hair appears in Old Norse, haddr silfjar, "hair of Sif", goddess from Norse Mythology, wife of the god Thor. There are two major sections of Polytrichum species. The first — section Polytrichum — has narrow, toothed, and relatively erect leaf margins.
Bank Haircap Moss · Polytrichum moss · Polytrichum moss · Juniper polytrichum moss · Polytrichum moss · Ohio polytrichum moss · Polytrichum moss · Polytrichum moss
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Polytrichum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
