Plants red-green, appearing black proximally, densely foliose with a thick apical coma, leaf bases hidden. Stems appearing atomen-tose but tomentum hidden in the bases of branch innovations. Leaves densely disposed on stem or in dense annual whorls distinctly separated by less foliose regions, terminating in a thick multi-branched comal tuft, tips present and not fragile, intact; leaves often strongly squarrose-recurved when wet, plane, not undulate; proximal laminal cells thick-walled and brownish, intergrading in shape and size with the distal cells, which are often nonpapillose in the area of merger; leaves broadly concave in section; leaf cross section with cells in one layer beside the costa, the lamina uniformly 1-stratose; costa at midleaf exposed adaxially by as much as four stereid cells, the costa always differentiated into guide cells, stereids and epidermal cells, adaxial stereid layer never disappearing toward the apex, adaxial epidermal layer typically absent apically in a medial groove to 2 stereid cells in width.
Home