Pilopogon

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Dicranaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Pilopogon

  • Type

    Type specimen: P. gracilis (Hooker) Bridel (=P. guadeloupensis).

  • Description

    Genus Description - Plants to 5 cm, rarely to 8 cm high, in loose tufts, brownish, blackish, green to yellowish green. Stems mostly conspicuously equally foliate when dry, giving the plants a filiform appearance, erect spreading when moist, sparsely radiculose at base. Leaves straight, 3-7 mm long, from a contracted base, lanceolate, longly subulate. Perichaetial leaves with broad sheathing base, suddenly contracted to long fine subula, enclosing the seta from 1/4 to nearly to the capsule. Costa at base 1/5-1/2 of the leaf width, excurrent in a short awn, smooth, denticulate at the extreme tip, or excurrent in a long serrate hyaline awn, in transverse section with ventral and dorsal stereids, smooth, ribbed or lamellose at back. Alar cells not differentiated, rarely inflated and reddish. Lower laminal cells thin-walled, hyaline, rectangular, narrower at margins, extending upwards along leaf margins, rarely incrassate. Upper laminal cells thick-walled, oblique, rhomboidal, oval, elongate-oval or short rectangular. Seta 1-2 cm long, erect. Capsule 2-4 mm long, light brown, cylindrical, sometimes broader at base, straight, without stomata. Peristome teeth 16, on a basal membrane, undivided or split to the base, densely papillose. Annulus present, dehiscent. Operculum longly rostrate, erect. Calyptra cucullate, fringed at base with long cilia, rarely smooth. Spores ca. 13 in diameter, yellowish to brownish, smooth to minutely papillose.

  • Discussion

    For a worldwide monograph see Frahm (1983a). This genus has a center of radiation in the northern Andes. Six of the 8 species known worldwide occur there. Outside the neotropics, only two additional species occur: P. schilleri Herzog in Chile and P. africanus Brotherus in Central Africa.

    The species can be arranged in three subgenera:

    Parapilopogon J.-P. Frahm, Lindbergia 9: 114. 1983. Basal laminal cells incrassate, sometimes pitted. Alar cells developed, inflated, reddish, species: P. longirostratus

    Pilopogonella (Bartram) Theriot, Rev. Bryol. Lichénol. 9: 13. 1936.Peristome teeth split to the base. Costa lamellose at back, species: P. laevis P. peruvianus

    Pilopogon

    Peristome teeth entire. Costa not lamellose at back.

    species: P. guadeloupensis

    P. macrocarpus

    P. tiquipayae