壶藓科   hu xian ke

by Gao Chien and Si He

 

Plants of alpine fens and high nitrogen, decaying organic substrates, small to rather robust, usually matted with more or less papillose rhizoids, gregarious or in dense tufts. Stems erect, branched by subfloral innovations, sparsely foliate on lower stems; central strand present. Leaves soft, broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate or oblong to spatulate, acute to acuminate or rounded-obtuse at apex; margins plane, entire or serrulate to serrate; costa single, mostly reaching above the midleaf, sometimes percurrent to shortly excurrent; leaf cells lax, thin-walled, pale, hexagonal to rectangular or oblong, smooth, rarely papillose; lower cells elongate; alar cells not differentiated. Autoicous, rarely dioicous. Perigonia often subglobose or subdisciform, antheridia surrounded by filiform or clavate paraphyses. Perichaetia usually without paraphyses, perichaetial leaves scarcely differentiated from stem leaves. Setae elongate, erect, smooth; capsules erect, symmetric, usually with an elongate and inflated apophysis; stomata numerous; opercula convex or conic, rarely not differentiated; annuli absent; peristome single, with 16 teeth, distinctly keeled, cross-striate or papillose; columella often persistent, sometimes falling attached to opercula. Calyptrae mitrate, rarely cucullate. Spores spherical, smooth or papillose.