Synoicous. Plants small, less than 10 mm tall, loosely caespitose, usually pale yellowish green above, brown below. Stems with a small central strand, lacking a hyalodermis. Rhizoids at base only, slightly papillose, dark red-brown. Leaves closely appressed and sometimes slightly twisted around stem when dry, narrowly lanceolate, without a sheathing base, 2.75–3.50 mm long, 0.625–0.750 µm wide; margin narrowly recurved, bistratose, denticulate (single or double teeth) by means of differentiated enlarged cells; costa strong, ±prominent abaxially, with strong abaxial and adaxial stereid bands; axillary hairs minute, c. 20 µm long, with 1 short pigmented basal cell and 1 larger globose hyaline cell; upper lamina variably bistratose, with cells c. 55 × 10 µm, papillose almost to the base from prorate cell ends; base of lamina unistratose, with inner cells elongate, to 62.5 × 15 µm, with 2–6 rows of shorter quadrate cells at alar margin.

Setae erect to flexuose, to c. 15 mm long. Capsules globose, erect, c. 1 mm long, shallowly sulcate when dry; exothecial cells ±hexagonal, evenly thickened (without trigones). Peristome of short dull orange exostome teeth and a short membranous endostome bearing thin filaments. Spores subglobose, 24–25 µm diameter, with a few large domed verrucae.

Native.

Endemic to Western Australia and Tasmania, currently recognised from only a few sites, from the Darling Ranges near Perth, Western Australia and the coast and islands of south-eastern Tasmania.

Bartramia strictifolia Taylor, London J. Bot. 5: 54 (1846).
Type: Swan River, W.A., J.Drummond 31 p.p.; holo: BM n.v.

Taxonomic synonyms

Bartramia strictifolia Taylor var. minor Watts & Whitel., Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales 30 (Suppl.): 152 (1906), nom. nud. Based on: Kangaroo Point, [Bellerive], Tas., 2 Sept. 1889, W.A.Weymouth s.n. (HO 43399).

W.A.: Helena River, Darling Range, 27 July 1914, coll. unknown (AD, UWA); Gooseberry Hill, Darling Range, 15 Aug. 1914, coll. unknown (NSW, UWA).

Tas.: Kangaroo Point, [Bellerive], 2 Sept. 1889, W.A.Weymouth (HO); Maria Island, L.Rodway 181 (HO).

The original description of Taylor (1846) reported “stems an inch high” which seems to be either confused or erroneous, since no material seen reaches this height, even including the sporophyte.

D.G.Catcheside, Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 619, fig. 1c, d (1987).

Bell, G.H. (2012). Australian Mosses Online. 42. Bartramiaceae: Bartramia. http://www.anbg.gov.au/abrs/Mosses_online/Bartramiaceae_Bartramia.pdf 

First published as:  Bell, G.H. (2006). Bartramia in Bartramiaceae, Flora of Australia Volume 51. (Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra & CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne).