Bryum

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

  • Family

    Bryaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Bryum

  • Description

    Description - Plants usually growing in dense compact cushions, more or less matted with radicles. Stems erect, simple or branching by apical innovations. Leaves more or less crowded at apex, erect, elliptic, ovate or lanceolate, concave; apex acute, obtuse or with the eosta pereurrent into an awn; margins often bordered, more or less recurved, entire or serrate at apex; cells mostly hexagonal or rectangular at base. Inflorescence variable, heteroicous, pedicel exserted, erect or bent at apex; capsule nodding or rarely horizontal, usually ovoid or pyriform, with a distinct neck; annulus often large and compound, falling with the blunt lid; peristome double, its teeth usually with a zigzag median line; endostome equalling the teeth, sometimes imperfect or with keeled segments and 23 cilia, arising from a basal membrane. A large genus of about 625 species widely distributed from the arctic regions to the tropics in both hemispheres. [Name Greek, a moss.] Type species: Bryum argenteum L.