Species description:
Genus named in honour of W.J. Hooker, a 19th-century British botanist who made major contributions to the understanding of mosses and hepatics. Species name meaning polished, indicating the opalescent sheen of the dried plants.

Reproduction:
Sporophytes infrequent, red-brown, maturing in early spring to summer. The brittle plants, especially in water, also serve in propagation and the leaf apices sometimes bear filamentous gemmae, especially in plants subject to submergence sometime during the year. The calyptra bears a much-dissected, flaring frill.

Distinguishing characteristics:
The flattened leafy plants in which the leaves show the cell network conspicuously (at 10X magnification) and the somewhat blunt leaf apices, combined with the damp, often swampy forest habitat are characteristic features. The plants resemble leafy liverworts superficially but the leaves are in more than three rows and sporophytes are clearly of a moss.

Habit:
Loose mats of pale green to dark green, translucent to glossy plants, loosely to firmly attached to substratum.

Similar Species:
Can be confused with H. acutifolia, a rather uncom­mon species but one which has sharply acute leaves and usually grows on clayey soil patches in shaded sites.

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  Some Common Mosses of BC