Leptobryum

• Authority

  Sharp, Aaron J., et al. 1994. The Moss Flora of Mexico. Part One: Sphagnales to Bryales. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 69 (1): 1-452.

• Family

  Meesiaceae

• Scientific Name

  Leptobryum

• Description

  Genus Description - Slender plants in loose or dense, shiny, light- or yellow-green tufts radiculose at base. Stems simple. Tubers generally present on the rhizoids. Leaves abruptly larger and crowded at the stem tips, erect- or wide-spreading, flexuose when dry, lanceolate or long-subulate to setaceous from a broader, oblong base; margins plane, entire or somewhat denticulate at the apex; costa moderately developed or filling about 1/2 the leaf base and most of the subula, subpercurrent to shortly excurrent; cells long-linear, broader and long-rectangular below. Setae terminal, slender, flexuose-curved; capsules strongly inchned to pendulous, pyriform from a long, narrow neck, small at the mouth, smooth, shiny; annulus revoluble; operculum convex-conic, mammillate; stomata superficial; peristome teeth lance-acuminate, yellowish, densely papillose, trabeculate; endostome hyaline, finely papillose, about as long as the teeth, with a high basal membrane, keeled and perforate segments, and well-developed, appendiculate ciha in 3s (and occasionally 4s). Spores spherical.

• Discussion

  Shiny, pear-shaped capsules, long-linear leaf cells, and rhizoidal tubers are important generic characters. The linear-setaceous leaves of L. pyriforme are highly distinctive.