Heterocladium

• 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

  Pterigynandraceae

• Scientific Name

  Heterocladium

• Description

  Genus Description - Plants small to moderate in size, in flat, mostly dull, dark-green to yellow-brown mats. Stems creeping, irregularly pinnately branched; paraphyllia very few, filiform to foliose; pseudoparaphyllia, if present, foliose. Leaves dimorphous. Stem leaves erect-spreading to squarrose, gradually or abruptly narrowed to a slender acumen from a sheathing, cordate-ovate, narrowly decurrent base; margins plane, serrulate all around; costa short and indistinct, double or sometimes single or forked; cells elongate throughout or oblong-linear in the middle of the leaf base and small and subquadrate to rhombic toward the margins and above, smooth or papillose with 1 to several small papillae. Branch leaves small, broadly ovate, acute to blunt or rounded-obtuse, often imbricate or secund; upper cells short. Dioicous. Perichaetial leaves pale, erect at base, with ± spreading to squarrose acumina. Setae elongate, smooth; capsules strongly inclined to horizontal, curved, oblong-cylindric, short-necked, constricted below the mouth when dry; annulus differentiated; operculum convex-conic, blunt or rostrate; exostome teeth yellowish to yellow-brown; ciha of endostome well-developed and nodulose, in groups of 1-3.