Squamidium
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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
Brachytheciaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Plants medium-sized to ± robust, in lustrous, mostly soft, pale green to golden, often black-tinged colonies; stems creeping or pendent, irregularly branched, the branches mostly short and simple. Stem and branch leaves often differentiated, especially in shape and length of apex, little altered when moist except that branch leaves then ± conspicuously ranked, erect to erect-spreading, mostly oblong-ovate, sometimes broadly so, abruptly acute to hairpointed, concave, ± clasping the stems, broadly long-decurrent; margins subentire to serrulate, plane or more typically incurved above; costa single, slender, often ending near base of acumen but sometimes weaker, irregularly short and double; cells linear, smooth, firm- walled, mostly porose; alar cells usually strongly differentiated in discrete, ± excavate groups, subquadrate and thick-walled or less often short- rectangular and thin walled. Asexual propagula sometimes of flagellate branches arising from branch leaf axils. Setae short to very short, smooth, yellow to orange; capsules immersed to short -exserted, erect, symmetric, cylindric to broadly cylindric; exostome teeth on the front surface ± papillose throughout; endostome with a medium - high basal membrane, segments slender, ± keeled, not or narrowly perforate, cilia rudimentary to absent. Calyptrae mitrate, lobed at base, sparsely to densely erect- hairy, smooth. Squamidium is a genus of seven species, all of which occur in the neotropics. the genus is characterized by soft, mostly pendent plants that are often tinged with black. The stem leaves are often hairpointed, but branch leaves, with the exception of a very common species(ours), are acute to acuminate. The costae are single and the laminal cells linear smooth. The alar cells are strongly differentiated, often in excavate, colored groups. The plants are dioicous and rarely fertile, with mostly immersed capsules. Squamidium was monographed by Allen and Crosby (1986).