Campylopus

• Authority

  Frahm, Jan-Peter. 1991. Dicranaceae: Campylopodioideae, Paraleucobryoideae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 54: 1-238. (Published by NYBG Press)

• Family

  Dicranaceae

• Scientific Name

  Campylopus

• Description

  Genus Description - Plants small to robust, up to 15 cm high, erect, rarely branched. Stems sparsely to densely white or red tomentose or not tomentose. Leaves 5-15 mm long, lanceolate, erect patent to appressed foliate, the upper leaves often longer and comose, straight, curled or homomallous. Leaf tips smooth or denticulate. Costa filling 1/3-7/8 of the leaf width at base, ending in the leaf tip or more or less long-excurrent, in transverse section on the ventral side with one row of hyalocysts or l(-3) rows of stereids, a median band of chlorocysts (deuter cells), below a layer of stereid or non-stereid cells and dorsally a layer of chlorocysts, which are smooth, ridged or forming lamellae 1-6 cells high. Alar cells lacking or differentiated, reddish or hyaline, inflated to auriculate. Basal laminal cells hyaline and thin-walled or incrassate, with smooth or pitted cell walls, subquadrate to rectangular, usually smaller or narrower at margins. Upper laminal cells incrassate, quadrate to rectangular, oblique or oval to elongate oval. Dioicous. Perichaetia terminal, often bud-like, or (rarely) pseudolateral; perichaetial leaves differentiated with broader, sheathing base, contracted to a narrow, long subula. Setae 5-15 mm long, often aggregated, in young sporophytes cygneous, in dry and mature sporophytes more or less erect but sinuose and twisted, cygneous when wet. Capsules erect to curved, sometimes strumose, striate or furrowed when empty. Annulus present but not dehiscent. Opercula obliquely rostrate, half as long as the capsule. Peristome teeth divided to the middle or more deeply into two prongs, reddish and horizontally striate below, hyaline and papillose above. Spores ca. 13 in diameter, nearly smooth to papillose. Calyptrae ciliate at base or not, sometimes both conditions in the same species.

• Discussion

  Lectotype species: Campylopus flexuosus (Hedw.) Brid.

  The genus can be divided into three subgenera. -Subgenus Thysanomitrion (Schwaeger.) Kindb. emend. J.-P. Frahm, which has only one species (C. richardii) in the Neotropics (Frahm, 1984a). This subgenus is essentially characterized by sporophytic characters; narrow, filiform, deeply split peristome teeth, a symmetric capsule, scabrous base and very finely papillose spores. Most species produce comose Perichaetia on appressed foliate stems, have an areolation with incrassate and pitted cells, show side nerves and a transverse section of the costa with ventral and dorsal bands of stereids.
  -Subgenus Campylopidulum Vital, which has two species worldwide: Campylopus perpusillus (tropical Africa) and C. carolinae (Brazil and SE North America). The subgenus has nearly globose capsules on very short (only 2-4 mm long setae) that are immersed in the perichaetial leaves, and the calyptrae are long ciliate with cilia nearly as long as the calyptra. The subgenus resembles the genus Sphaerothecium, but Sphaerothecium has larger spores, about 23 µm in diam., and the calyptrae are entire. -Subgenus Campylopus which has two sections, Campylopus and Homalocarpus (Frahm, 1983b). Section Campylopus has asymmetric, often strumose capsules, whereas section Homalocarpus Mitten has symmetric, upright, nonstrumose capsules.
  These infrageneric categories can be distinguished only by sporophytic characters, which are rarely present. Therefore, for practical purposes, this treatment of the genus does not utilize this classification.