Ectropothecium
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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
Hypnaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Plants small to medium-sized, in often lustrous, soft or stiff, green to golden, often extensive, thin mats; stems creeping, irregularly but freely branched to regularly pinnate, the branches mostly simple, in cross-section with a sclerodermis. Stem and branch leaves similar, crowded, typically falcate-secund, the apices often pointing toward the substrate, sometimes erect, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, symmetric or somewhat asymmetric, gradually short- to long-acuminate, concave, often plicate, not or scarcely decurrent except by a single cell; margins serrate to serrulate above, entire below, mostly plane or erect; costa short and double, sometimes to 1/4 the leaf length, or absent; cells linear to linear-flexuose, mostly smooth, rarely prorulose, thin- to firm-walled, becoming shorter, broader, thicker-walled and porose toward the insertion; alar cells few in extreme basal angles, quadrate to short-rectangular, not thick-walled, typically with a single hyaline, ± inflated cell in each basal angle. Asexual propagula none. Autoicous or dioicous. Setae elongate, smooth, reddish, twisted, curved just below the urn; capsules horizontal to pendent, small, ovoid, constricted below the mouth when dry; peristome double, exostome teeth on the front surface cross-striolate below, coarsely papillose above; endostome with a high basal membrane, segments broad, keeled, nar¬rowly perforate, about as long as the teeth, cilia in groups of 1-3. Calyptrae cucullate, naked or sparsely hairy, smooth. Ectropothecium is characterized by often regularly pinnate plants with falcate-secund leaves and scant alar development. The predom¬inant feature of the genus, and the only one that really separates it from Hypnum, is the short, ovoid capsule. The genus is the “Hypnum of the tropics and many first-time visitors to equatorial latitudes are easily deceived. However, the falcate-secund leaves often pointing to the substrate and the small capsules are helpful field characters to distinguish it from Hypnum.