Lepidopilum

  • Authority

    Buck, William R. 2003. Guide to the plants of central french Guiana. Part 3. Mosses. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 76: 1-167.

  • Family

    Pilotrichaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Lepidopilum

  • Description

    Genus Description - Plants mostly medium-sized, sometimes smaller or robust, in mostly lustrous, bright green or less often golden or reddish, dense or lax mats or tufts; stems creeping, often short, often with eroded leaves, with erect primary branches, mostly complanate-foliate, in cross-section with a hyalodermis, central strand absent. Leaves sometimes contorted dry or moist, laxly or densely foliate, lateral and dorsal leaves often differentiated in size, shape, and symmetry, mostly wide-spreading, oblong-lanceolate to broadly ovate, gradually to abruptly acute to acuminate, rarely obtuse, asymmetric, sometimes very strongly so; margins entire to serrate, plane or narrowly recurved, sometimes bordered by elongate, narrow cells, usually indistinct at leaf base; costa double, often slender, ± divergent throughout, mostly ending at midleaf or below, not projecting at apex; cells mostly long-hexagonal, rarely hexagonal, the apical ones sometimes shorter than those at midleaf, smooth, thin- or firm-walled, becoming shorter and often colored in 1-3 rows across the insertion. Asexual propagula common in leaf axils, uniseriate, mostly chlorophyllose. Autoicous, synoicous, or dioicous. Setae often short, sometimes elongate, typically papillose throughout, rarely only above or smooth throughout, reddish; capsules erect, symmetric, cylindric; exostome teeth on the front surface not furrowed, papillose throughout; endostome with a low basal membrane, segments erect, not or scarcely keeled, mostly not perforate, about as long as the teeth, cilia mostly none, rarely rudimentary. Calyptrae hairy, smooth or roughened at apex.

  • Discussion

    Lepidopilum was monographed by Churchill (1988) in an unpublished doctoral dissertation. Most of his taxonomic conclusions are fol¬lowed here. Since our material of Lepidopilidium is usually sterile, it is included in the key to Lepidopilum.