''Rhodobryum roseum'', commonly known as rose moss, is a species of moss of the subclass

Bryidae Bryidae is an important subclass of Bryopsida. It is common throughout the whole world. Members have a double peristome with alternating tooth segments. Classification The classification of the Bryidae.Buck, William R. & Bernard Goffinet. 2000. ...

and family

Bryaceae Bryaceae is a family of mosses.Buck, William R. & Bernard Goffinet. 2000. "Morphology and classification of mosses", pages 71-123 ''in'' A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), ''Bryophyte Biology''. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). . ...

, found throughout most of the world in woods or sheltered grassy places. It rarely forms

sporophyte A sporophyte () is one of the two alternation of generations, alternating multicellular organism, multicellular phases in the biological life cycle, life cycles of plants and algae. It is a diploid multicellular organism which produces asexual Spo ...

s and spore cases, and primarily reproduces vegetatively by

stolons In biology, a stolon ( from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as a runner, is a horizontal connection between parts of an organism. It may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. Typically, animal stolons ar ...

, horizontal stems that root at the nodes, resulting in populations of plants that are sterile or only female.

Description

This species forms characteristic rosettes of leaves at the ends of secondary stems, which in turn grow from a wiry, creeping primary stem. The rosette of some 18-22 leaves somewhat resembles a small green rose. The leaf margins are revolute and finely toothed towards the leaf tip, which ends in a short mucronate point. The leaf midrib is prominent. Leaves growing on the primary stem are small and scale-like, while the basal leaves on the secondary stems are also very small. It occurs in short grassland in open woodland, occasionally in forests, heaths, sand dunes and chalk grassland, and on grassy rock ledges and tree trunks.

Uses

This is a useful medicinal species. Extracts such as

ursolic acid Ursolic acid (sometimes referred to as urson, prunol, malol, or 3β-hydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid), is a pentacyclic triterpenoid identified in the epicuticular waxes of apples as early as 1920 and widely found in the peels of fruits, as we ...

flavonoids Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids ...

and

alkaloids Alkaloids are a broad class of naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids. Alkaloids are produced by a large variety of organisms i ...

have been used in cardiac and other medical research. Mosses show great diversity in morphology and anatomy of their gametophytes and sporophytes. Because of their small sizes it is difficult differentiating between ''Rhodobryum roseum'' and its adulterants by traditional methods. In particular ''Rhodobryum roseum'' is often confused with '' Rhodobryum ontariense'', and '' Plagiomnium actum'', ''

Plagiomnium maximoviczii ''Plagiomnium'' is a genus of mosses in the family Mniaceae. It was formerly a part of a more encompassing genus '' Mnium'' and in 1968 Finnish bryologist Timo Juhani Koponen justified splitting the genus into a number of smaller genera. Descr ...

'' and '' Mnium laevinarve'' from closely allied taxa.

References

Bryaceae {{bryidae-stub