Pterobryaceae
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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
Pterobryaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Plants mostly medium-sized to robust but not uncommonly slender, in often lustrous, green to golden, erect to pendent, often epiphytic colonies, often seriate-foliate; primary stems creeping, usually tightly attached to the substrate, turning ca. 90° and becoming the upright secondary stem (stipe), stipes mostly branched, rarely simple or frondose, erect, less often pendent, in cross-section with a sclerodermis; pseudoparaphyllia filamentous, numerous. Stem and branch leaves often differentiated, when frondose the stipe leaves often differentiated from secondary stem leaves above first branches, strongly 5-seriate or not, little altered when dry, rarely more spreading when moist, often concave, often decurrent; margins mostly serrulate above, sometimes serrate or subentire, plane or incurved, rarely recurved, elimbate; costa mostly single and ending above midleaf, sometimes percurrent, less often short and double or absent; cells mostly linear-flexuose, mostly smooth, sometimes prorulose, firm- to thick-walled, porose; alar cells usually differentiated, sometimes extensively, often firm- to thick- walled, sometimes colored. Asexual propagula often clustered in leaf axils, uniseriate. Almost always dioicous. Setae mostly short, usually smooth, less often roughened; capsules often immersed, sometimes exserted, erect and symmetric; peristome usually double but endostome often greatly reduced, prostome often present, exostome teeth usually unomamented; endostome mostly rudimentary (absent?) and difficult to demonstrate. Calyptrae cucullate or mitrate, naked or crispate-pilose, smooth or roughened above. The Pterobryaceae are characterized, and usually easily recognized, by a creeping primary stem and erect (or less often pendent) secondary stems, with numerous filamentous pseudoparaphyllia. The leaves are scarcely altered when dry, and sometimes strikingly arranged in five rows. The alar cells are mostly differentiated and thick-walled, and the laminal cells are mostly linear-flexuose, firm-walled, and porose. The plants are rarely fertile, and the capsules are usually either immersed or short-exserted. The erect capsules have pale peristomes inserted below the mouth. The exostome teeth are characteristically unomamented except for prostomial plates. The endostome is usually greatly reduced or absent.