Tortella flavovirens Arisaig Crisp-moss

A yellowish-green, dioicous, acrocarpous moss which grows in fixed dune grasslands, on coastal slopes and in short turfs near the sea. It is a Submediterranean-Subatlantic species which is exclusively maritme and distributed all around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. The tongue-shaped leaves are more like a Trichostomum species and quite unlike the leaves of other Tortella species, but like them they become curled and contorted when dry and they have the characteristic V-shaped transition between the colourless basal cells and the green cells of the upper leaf, which can be seen with a hand lens. Sporophyte capsules are very rare.