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

Species description:
Species name meaning urn-bearing, in reference to the sporangia.

Reproduction:
Sporophytes common, maturing in summer to autumn but persisting sometimes through two years.

Distinguishing characteristics:
The powdery bluish-green plants with wine-red stems, the leaves occasionally tinged with red, with toothed margins, combined with the stiff leaves with lamellae on the upper surface, and the autumn maturing sporangia that are round in cross section, are all useful characters. Often the shoots are branched and each branch may bear a sporophyte.

Habit:
Dense to loose, short, bluish-green turfs in which the stems are wine-red and attached at the base to the substratum by many rhizoids.

Similar Species:
Pogonatum dentatum cannot be readily distinguished on hand lens characters. Polytrichum alpinum of high elevations lacks the bluish-green leaves and may resemble Pogonatum. Polytrichum sexangu­lare has glossy, dark green leaves that lack marginal teeth.