Dicranella hookeri (Müll.Hal.) Cardot

Plants medium-sized, slender, growing in dense tufts, brownish-or yellowish-green, dull or slightly glistening. Stems erect, to 6 cm tall, sparingly branched or simple, sparsely or densely radiculose below with light brown, branched rhizoids, in transverse section rounded with a large central strand, 3-4-layered medulla of large, yellowish-hyaline cells a unistratose cortex of smaller cells with brown, moderately thickened walls. Leaves smaller below, becoming progressively larger upwards, 1.4-2.3 x 0.5-0.7 mm, widely spaced, from a broad, oblong semi-vaginant loosely clasping base gradually or abruptly narrowed to a channeled, erect to erect-spreading subula, straight or usually altered when dry, entire, obtuse to subacute at the apex, usually as long as or to twice exceeding the leaf base; margins plane, entire throughout; costa single, subpercurrent, 70-90 um wide at base, smooth at back, sharply delimited to somewhat diffuse in the sheath, gradually merging into the bistratose laminal cells at the shoulders and in the subula, in transverse section flattened in the base, more convex dorsally in the subula, consisting of dorsal and ventral stereid bands separated by a row of large guide cells. Laminal cells smooth througout; basal cells moderately thick-walled, rectangular, 30-60 x 8-14 um, unistratose, transparent, not differentiated at the basal angles; shoulder cells short-rectangular to subquadrate, unistratose or variously bistratose towards the costa, 15-40 x 8-15 um; limb cells short-rectangular to subquadrate, 10-35 x 10-15 um, uni-to bistratose except for 1-3 marginal rows. Dioicous. Perigonia terminal, gemmiform; perigonial bracts from a strongly concave, ovate base abruptly subulate. Sporophytes unknown in South Africa.