Authors:
Mat or hummock-forming, 3-7cm tall. Leaves rather fleshy, oblongspathulate to linear, blunt, 5-15 by 3mm, decussate and dense. Flowers on erect stems, usually solitary, but also in two to fives, widely funnel-shaped to starry, pale to blue-violet, sometimes white or cool pink, 1.7-4cm long in bud with a minimal tube, late autumn to late winter. Southern Colombia and throughout Ecuador in cushion paramo moorland communities often in very wet areas at 25005000m. This neat little species has until recently often included the quite different 'closed' G. rupicola. Any reports of warm corolla colours in the red or yellow areas of the spectrum may be attributed to this. There is a fine colour illustration of the classic dwarf G. cerastioides with the caption 'G . cf muscoides' in A.G.S. Bulletin Vol.59, No.2, 1991.
