Campylopus
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Authority
Sharp, Aaron J., et al. 1994. The Moss Flora of Mexico. Part One: Sphagnales to Bryales. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 69 (1): 1-452.
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Family
Dicranaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Plants erect in loose to dense tufts 0.5-8 cm high, simple or seldom forked, often radiculose, mostly equally foliate. Leaves long lance-acuminate, erect or slightly curved, straight or ± flexuose; costa broad (more than 1/2 the leaf base), percurrent or excurrent, sometimes ending in a hyaline point, often ribbed and sometimes serrulate at back, with 0, 1, or 2 stereid bands; alar cells none or conspicuously differentiated, hyahne or brownish-red; basal cells enlarged, with thin or thick walls, sometimes porose, the outer cells often narrow and elongate; upper cells quadrate, short-rectangular, shortly elongate or rhomboidal. Dioicous. Perichaetial leaves broader at the base and longer-pointed than stem leaves. Setae generally cygneouscurved; capsules ovoid to short-cylindric, often furrowed; operculum rostrate; peristome teeth 16, deeply divided, vertically pitted-striolate below. Calyptrae cucullate, usually fringed.
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Discussion
The genus, abundantly represented in Mexico, is made taxonomically difficult by the fact that sporophytes are and in many cases unknown. However, Campylopus is easily recognizable as a genus because of a very broad costa and often conspicuously differentiated alar cells. The seta is cygneous, the capsules usually furrowed when dry, and the calyptrae often fringed at base.
The Campylopodioideae (to which Campylopus belongs) and the Paraleucobryoideae have been treated in a thorough fashion by Frahm (1991). Reference may also be made to a preliminary treatment of the genus in Central America by Allen (1989).