葫芦藓科   hu-lu xian ke

by Li Xing-jiang, Si He, and Zhang Da-cheng

 

Plants small to medium-sized, terrestrial, light green to yellowish green, in loose tufts. Stems erect, rarely branched, radiculose at base; central strand usually present. Leaves usually soft and delicate, crowded around stem tips in a rosette or nearly so, upper leaves larger, ovate, obovate or elliptic-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, often apiculate at apex; margins entire or serrate, usually with differentiated marginal cells, sometimes not bordered; costa slender, often ending below leaf apex, sometimes percurrent or shortly excurrent; leaf cells smooth, upper cells lax, irregularly oblong-hexagonal, rarely rhombic; basal cells narrowly rectangular, thin-walled. Autoicous or rarely dioicous. Perichaetia terminal; perichaetial leaves similar to stem leaves. Setae short to elongate, slender, erect or flexuous above; capsules immersed or long-exserted, pyriform or obovoid, erect, inclined, or horizontal to pendulous; stomata present on the necks; opercula conic or shortly rostrate, rarely not developed; annuli present or lacking; peristome teeth double, single or lacking. Calyptrae smooth, naked, usually cucullate, lobed at base, sometimes mitrate. Spores medium-sized, smooth or papillose.

 

 

 

1. Costa slender, ending near 2/3 the leaf length; capsules immersed, cleistocarpous............. 4. Physcomitrella

1. Costa stout, ending near the leaf apex, percurrent or excurrent; capsules long-exserted, stegocarpous......... 2

2. Leaves imbricate; leaf margins somewhat bordered by elongate and yellowish cells; costa excurrent in a short awn................................................................................................................................ 1. Brachymeniopsis

2. Leaves spreading; leaf margins not differentiated; costa percurrent or only excurrent in an apiculus......... 3

3. Capsules short and broad, bowl-shaped or urceolate; peristome teeth absent; calyptrae inflated-mitrate.........

3. Capsules subcylindrical or narrowly pyriform; peristome teeth usually present; calyptrae inflated-cucullate........................................................................................................................................................................................ 4

4. Capsules erect, symmetric; annuli absent; peristome teeth single, reduced or absent.......... 2. Entosthodon

4. Capsules curved, inclined to horizontal or pendulose, usually very asymmetric; annuli present; peristome double.................................................................................................................................................... 3. Funaria