Lepidopilum

  • Authority

    Sharp, Aaron J., et al. 1994. The Moss Flora of Mexico. Part Two: Orthotrichales to Polytrichales. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 69 (2)

  • Family

    Pilotrichaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Lepidopilum

  • Description

    Genus Description - Plants slender to fairly robust, green or yellowish, rarely reddish, ± shiny, gregarious or loosely tufted. Primary stems usually ± elongate, creeping, ± radiculose; secondary stems erect or ascending, simple, or sparsely branched to subpinnate. Leaves in 8 rows, erect-spreading to spreading and complanate, sometimes decurved at the tips, often shriveled or ± contorted when dry, flat, ± asymmetric, broadly oblong or lingulate and short- to long-acuminate or sometimes lance-acuminate from an oblong base, mostly ± sharply serrate above, rarely entire or nearly so; costae divergent, ending at or below the midleaf; cells smooth, rather large and pellucid, sometimes lax, usually firm-walled, oblong-hexagonal or rhomboidal above and sometimes more elongate toward the margins forming a ± distinct border, more elongate toward the base (sometimes all the cells oblong-linear). Perichaetial leaves small, erect, ovate-lanceolate and gradually acuminate or oblong and abruptly subulate. Setae short to elongate, smooth, papillose, or bristly; capsules short- to long-exserted, usually oblong-cylindric, short-necked, smooth; annulus none; operculum conic-rostrate, erect; exostome teeth lance-subulate, often whitish, papillose, with a zigzag median line on the outer surface, broadly bordered, trabeculate; endostome yellow or hyaline, papillose, the segments from a low basal membrane, similar to the teeth in size and shape, keeled and sometimes narrowly perforate, the cilia rudimentary or none. Calyptrae lobed, naked or hairy.