Orthodontium

• 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

  Orthodontiaceae

• Scientific Name

  Orthodontium

• Description

  Genus Description - Rather small plants in loose or dense, yellow-green to yellow-brown, somewhat shiny tufts. Stems erect, simple or forked, moderately radiculose below. Leaves erect-spreading and flexuose or twisted-flexuose when dry, spreading when moist, keeled, relatively long, linear or linear-setaceous, slenderly acute; margins plane, entire or ± serrulate toward the apex; costa ending somewhat below the apex to shortly excurrent; cells linear or linear-rhomboidal and ± thick-walled above, broader an laxly oblong-hexagonal below. Setae slender, erect-flexuose, yellowish; capsules erect or nearly so, symmetric, subcylindric to ovoid and tapered to a short or fairly long neck, thin-walled, smooth or ± wrinkled to irregularly furrowed when dry, brown or yellow-brown; annulus none; operculum obliquely rostrate; stomata superficial; exostome teeth inserted somewhat below the mouth, slender, yellow-brown, smooth or papillose; basal membrane of endostome none or short, the segments narrow, about as long as the teeth to considerably longer, smooth or papillose.

• Discussion

  The genus, monographed by Meijer (1952), shows considerable resemblance to Pohlia in gametophytic character, but theerect and symmetric capsules and somewhat reduced endostome with the basal membrane essentially lacking are distinctive.