E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Species description:
Genus named in honour of J.c. Timm, an 18th-century, Ger­man botanist. Species named for Austria, where the species was first collected.

Reproduction:
Sporophytes occasional, the setae and sporangia light brown when mature in summer.

Distinguishing characteristics:
The somewhat sheathing often reddish-­pigmented leaf bases, the light to dark green plants, the strongly divergent but stiff leaves, and the nodding sporangia are useful features for determination.

Habit:
Tall, dull, grayish green to dark green turfs, often suffused with the red-brown of the coloured sheathing leaf base and the un­branched stems; affixed to the substratum by brownish rhizoids.

Similar Species:
T. austriaca is sometimes confused with Polytrichum but the similarity is superficial since the leaves lack lamellae found in Polytrichum and the sporophyte is obviously different. The leaves that are sub sheathing will immediately distinguish it from Bryum, Mnium or Pohlia in which the sporophyte is superficially similar.