8. Leptodontium luteum (Tayl.) Mitt., J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 12: 50. 1869.

Didymodon luteus Tayl., London J. Bot. 5: 48. 1846. Protologue: Ecuador. Common on Pichincha, near Quito, Prof. William Jameson.

Plants medium to large in loose tufts, yellow-green to green, to 15 cm high. Stems red, erect or laxly ascending, hyalodermis present, not or sparsely radiculose. Leaves moderately to well-spaced, erect and spirally twisted to contorted, at times undulate when dry, patulous, squarrose or squarrose-recurved when wet, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, 4–7 mm long, keeled above, weakly sheathing at base, decurrent; apices acute; margins usually recurved in lower 1/2–2/3, at times narrowly recurved then narrowly incurved at base, dentate to near insertion; costa percurrent to subpercurrent; upper leaf cells quadrate to subrectangular, firm-walled, evenly thickened, 5–15 x 5–12.5 μm, densely pluripapillose, papillae simple, low, crowded, 4–6 scattered over the over the lumina, inner basal cells narrowly elongate, pluripapillose, thick-walled, porose, not bulging, 42.5–92.5 x 10 μm, outer basal leaf cells rectangular to quadrate, pluripapillose, thick-walled, porose, 10–30 x 10 μm, alar cells not differentiated. Sporophytes not seen from Central America, description based on South American plants. Dioicous. Setae straight, 1–5 per perichaetium, 10–20 mm long, yellow, becoming red-brown with age. Capsules erect, cylindrical, 2–3 mm long, smooth when dry; exothecial cells long-rectangular, firm-walled; stomata at base of urn; opercula erect, conic-rostrate, 1 mm long; peristome teeth linear, divided to the base, red-brown, obliquely striate. Spores 10–17.5 μm, slightly papillose. Calyptrae cucullate, smooth, 4–5 mm long.