Pottiaceae
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Authority
Buck, William R. 2003. Guide to the plants of central french Guiana. Part 3. Mosses. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 76: 1-167.
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Family
Pottiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Plants minute to robust, usually tufted; stems mostly erect, simple to irregularly branched. Leaves often contorted when dry, usually crowded at stem apices, lanceolate to lingulate, sometimes linear, often from a differentiated base; margins usually entire, often revolute, rarely toothed, seldom limbate; costa single, subpercurrent to excurrent, usually with 1 or 2 stereid bands; cells of upper lamina often ± isodiametric, usually pluripapillose, sometimes smooth to mammillose; cells of leaf base often differentiated, frequently enlarged and thin-walled. Asexual reproduction common, by propagula on leaf surfaces, in leaf axils, or on rhizoids. Dioicous or monoicous. Perichaetia usually terminal on stems and branches; leaves differentiated or not. Setae mostly elongate, straight; capsules usually erect and symmetric, spherical to cylindric, smooth; peristome single or none, teeth consisting of 32 filiform divisions of 16 variously perforate or cleft teeth, often arising from a basal membrane, sometimes twisted, mostly papillose. Calyptrae almost always cucullate.
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Discussion
The Pottiaceae are a very large family of cosmopolitan distribution. The family is primarily adapted to dry habitats (see Zander, 1993), which are not common in the florula region. Still the family is surprisingly poorly represented in central French Guiana.