Crossomitrium

• 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

  Crossomitrium

• Description

  Description - Plants rather slender, in shiny, pale-green to yellowish, thin mats, sometimes tinged with brown or red, creeping, branched, complanate-foliate, with clusters of rhizoids and commonly clusters of brown, filiform brood bodies on the undersurface of stems and branches. Leaves crowded in 4 ranks but wide-spreading and strongly complanate, the median leaves obliquely erect, the lateral leaves larger and somewhat asymmetric, broadly ovate to suborbicular, acute or abruptly short-acuminate, often keeled-concave at the tip, ecostate; margins usually serrulate, the teeth often bifid; cells linear, smooth, those near the insertion larger and laxer. Dioicous. Setae elongate, red, papillose above or throughout; capsules suberect, oblong-ovoid or ellipsoidal, short-necked; annulus none; operculum conic, long-rostrate, erect; exostome teeth slenderly lanceolate, yellowish, papillose, not furrowed; endostome segments keeled and perforate, about as long as the teeth, rising from a low basal membrane, cilia lacking. Spores small. Calyptrae smooth and naked, ciliate-fringed at base. Reference may be made to Allen's monograph of the genus (1990c).