Chryso-hypnum
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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 mostly small, sometimes medium-sized, in soft, dark green to golden, often extensive, dense mats; stems creeping, prostrate, freely and irregularly to regularly pinnately branched, the branches mostly simple, short, blunt, densely foliate, in cross-section with a sclerodermis. Stem and branch leaves somewhat differentiated, erect- to wide-spreading, soft, mostly ovate, ± abruptly short- to long- acuminate, sometimes concave, seldom plicate, not or scarcely decurrent; margins serrulate, often throughout, plane to erect or recurved; costa short and double; cells linear, prorulose at upper and sometimes lower ends at back, often firm-walled, becoming shorter and broader toward the insertion; alar cells few in extreme angles, quadrate to short-rectangular. Asexual propagula none. Mostly autoicous, rarely dioicous. Setae elongate, smooth, reddish, twisted; capsules horizontal to pendent, ± arcuate, somewhat asymmetric, mostly ovoid to short- cylindric, usually with a differentiated neck, often 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 keeled, perforate, about as long as the teeth, cilia in groups of 1-3. Calyptrae cucullate, mostly sparsely to densely hairy, rarely naked, smooth. Chryso-hypnum, a segregate of Mittenothamnium, is defined by prostrate, soft plants with ovate leaves and cells that are prorulose at one or both ends. Other differences from Mittenothamnium are the nonstipitate habit, the shorter capsules with apiculate opercula, and the usually hairy calyptrae.