Thalli prostrate, in patches, bright green, with greasy lustre, smooth, yellow when dried, opaque, becoming translucent toward margins, otherwise fleshy, robust, axis plane to slightly concave, sub simple, lingulate to sublinear, 15-35 mm long. 2-6(-7) mm wide, apices rounded margins entire, undulate to somewhat crisped or lobed. Branching sparse, not pinnate, often short, sometimes long, irregularly furcate. Dorsal epidermal cells from above, 46(7)-sided, thin-walled, 87.5 x 37.5-62.5 µm; subdorsal cells 112.5-175.0 x 87.5-132.5 µm; subventral cells 100-160 x 50-75 µm; ventral epidermal cells 62.5-100.0 x 37.5-50.0 µm. Oil bodies in all cells, several to numerous, (2-)5-24(-67), small, 2.5-5.0 µm diam., spherical to subspherical or ovoid, faintly granular, inconspicuous. Colourless, scattered or occasionally aggregated in clusters. Marginal cells, outermost row unistratose, rectangular, 47.5-75.0 x 25-45 µm, inner cells angular, bistratose, 42.5-55.0 x 37.5-62.5 µm. Cross section of diallus plano convex to concavo-convex, with wings weakly recurved, medianly pluristratose, 9-15 cells (or 460-650 µm) thick, gradually becoming thinner laterally, epidermal cells chlorophyllose, 37.5-50.0 µm high, shallower than internal, hyaline cells, but not forming a distinctive layer, margins acute, bordered by bistratose wing, 3 cells wide plus a single conical cell, ± 50 µm high. Mucilage papillae clustered at ventral apices of branches and spaced along 2 rows, one on each side of midline, clavate, 105-114 x 425-51.0 µm, not persistent. Rhizouls restricted to ventral median area, 17.5-25.0 µm wide, sometimes ramified at tips and occasionally with mycorrhizal hyphae. Asexual reproduction by gemmae absent. Dioicous. Male plants somewhat smaller than female plants, axis up to 17 x 3.5-4.2 mm and medianly 9-11 cell layers thick, in close proximity to female plants, virtually touching; antheridial branches lateral, solitary, sublinear, 2.8 mm long or more, ± 1.15 mm wide and ± 850 µm thick, scalloped, bistratose wings, 300-500 µm or 6-8 cells wide, a continuation of thallus margin; otherwise divided into 2 or 3 branches, from near base or further along, up to 2.4 mm wide, antheridial chambers very irregularly arranged, not in rows, 2-4 across width of branch; antheridia subglobular, 200-250 µm wide, cavity walls between them bistratose; after antheridial production. branch may continue vegetative growth. Female plants with archegonial branches very short, ventral to lateral notch in thallus margin, at base of deep sinus and obscured by reflexed thallus folds on each side, archegonia in rows, hidden by densely crowded paraphyses, up to ± 500 µm long, composed of single strands of cells joined end to end or partly of 3 or more rows of laterally joined cells, 10-12 mm long, ± 2 mm diam., wall 8 or 9 cell layers (± 500 µm) thick, cells in cross section 5-7-sided, 65-7.00 x 62.5-75.0 µm, outermost cells of wall in surface view long-rectangular, 150-170 x 60-75 µm. In lower part of calyptra often developing rhizoids, but becoming nearly smooth with age, corona inconspicuous. base partly sheathed by adjacent, suberect thallus margins, Seta up to 21 mm long, somewhat spirally twisted, 750 µm or 15 cells diam. in cross section, marginal cells small, 32.5-47.5 x 25-40 µm. Inner cells round, 55-75 µm diam. Capsules oblong-ovoid, reddish brown, 2500-3250 µm long, with 4 valves, each one ± 1050 µm (or ± 42 cells) wide, bistratose, to either side of midline of every valve, thickenings laid down as a mirror image; epidermal (outer) cells in external longitudinal view with nodular thickenings, cells usually narrowly rectangular, 162.5-232.5 x 15.0-37.5 µm, in cross section, thickenings only rarely extending slightly across outer tangential walls, mostly on adaxial radial and abaxial radial walls; inner cells in internal longitudinal view adaxial radial longitudinal walls all develop bands which extend across inner tangential walls and connect with abaxial radial bands on opposite side of cell, thickenings therefore ± U-shaped elaters 212.5-350.0 x 10 µm, with single spiral band, ± 10 µm broad, pinkish red, tapering to ends, these without spiral. Elaterophores 1000-1445 x 220 µm, one at tip of each valve.
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