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

Species description:
Genus name meaning lover of moisture, in reference to the wet habitat. Species name also referring to the habitat of springs and fountains.

Reproduction:
Sporophytes occasional to locally abundant, reddish ­brown when mature; the sporangium erect, green and sub spherical when immature, but red-brown, inclined and regularly grooved when ripe. P. fontana, especially in humid, shaded sites, often produces masses of deciduous branches that serve in reproduction.

Distinguishing characteristics:
The tall, turf-like plants in wet habitats, tightly compacted with red-brown rhizoids, the male shoots termi­nated by a flower-like rosette of leaves and often bearing short lateral branchlets below this rosette, plus the round sporangia, grooved and inclined when dry, are useful features.

Habit:
Forming dense, tall, bright yellow-green to golden-green turfs densely tangled with red rhizoids.

Similar Species:
P. capillaris is less than ¼ the size of P. fontana and grows on disturbed mineral soil. Other species of Philonotis are impos­sible to distinguish on field characters and are troublesome even with microscopic features. Conostomum, similar in some respects to Philonitis" tends to form hard, rounded tufts in well-drained sites and the stiff, leafy shoots have the leaves in five neat rows, thus differing from the soft mats of Philionitis.