Thank you once again to Huenchecal.@Flickr, (associated with Chilebosque, a site about the native flora of Chile) for sharing an image from Chile (original via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool). It's great to have identified moss species available for BPotD from time to time.

Leptostomum splachnoideum is native to southern Chile and Argentina (map of Chilean collection sites). It is primarily, if not exclusively, epiphytic. Collections to date have occurred between 0 and 1000m. The name of the genus is derived from lepto- meaning "fine" or "slender" and stoma- meaning "mouth". The narrowing of the spore capsule to a small opening, as shown in today's photograph, is presumably what is meant by the name of the genus. The epithet splachnoideum is a reference to Splachnum, a genus of mosses commonly known as the dung-mosses. When an epithet like this is used (ending in -oideum or -oides, it means there is a readily-apparent morphological similarity between the species and another entity or group (e.g., Populus tremuloides is similar in appearance to Populus tremulus).

Today's species was first collected for science during the 1825-1828 voyage of the HMS Blossom, captained by Frederick William Beechey. It took over a decade before it was described and published in The Botany of Captain Beechey's Voyage.

For more on Leptostomum, see: Hyvönen, J. 1987. A synopsis of genus Leptostomum (Leptostomataceae, Musci). Annales Botanici Fennici 24: 63-72. (website of the author: Dr. Jaakko Hyvönen of the University of Helsinki).