Description: This moss forms extensive mats, yellowish green to brown above, brown to reddish brown below. Stems to 1.5 cm (0.6 in.) tall. Leaves ovate to short-lanceolate, to 1.9 mm (0.07 in.), ending in a short or long awn, with densely papillose upper lamina (blade) cells. Distal laminal cells 13-15 microns, costa (midrib) with a single layer of guide cells, medial cells more papillose and thicker than the marginal cells. Pseudocrossidium crinitum only grows female plants, with male plants unknown in North America.
Habitat: Sandstone soil, elevation 700 m (3,000 ft).
Range: Common in the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico and west Texas, rare in the Mojave Desert. Originally collected in 1955 at the south end of Valley of Fire State Park, Clark County, Nevada. To date this population is the only known one from the State; it was revisited in 1999 and appears to be healthy.
Comments: Distinguished from awned Syntrichia species by the ovate to short-lanceolate leaves with densely papillose upper lamina cells. Chemically, P. crinitum reacts deeply yellow in potassium hydroxide
solution, whereas Syntrichia reacts red. Also, P. crinitum resembles Gold Butte moss (Didymodon nevadensis), but Gold Butte moss has a somewhat cucullate (hood-like) acute leaf apex, the costa is percurrent (reaches the apex but does not extend beyond), and tubers are occasionally present on rhizoids.

Lloyd Stark, UNLV