POLYTRICHACEAE
金发藓科 jin fa xian ke
by Wu Peng-cheng and Wang Mei-zhi
Plants annual or perennial, small to robust, erect, green, brownish green to reddish brown, mostly rigid, in dense tufts, scattered or gregarious, some of them like the seedlings of conifers. Stems mostly single, rarely branched or dendroid, densely foliate at the upper portions of stems, naked or covered with scale-like leaves at the lower portions; rhizoids reddish brown or hyaline at the base of stems; rarely protonemata persistent; stoloniferous stems often present; in stem cross section epidermal cells not particularly differentiated, several rows of outer cortical cells small, thick-walled, medullar cells larger, thin-walled; central strand well developed. Leaves usually spirally arranged, erect-spreading when moist, often crisped when dry, mostly long-lanceolate or oblong-lingulate, usually broadly sheathing at base; margins entire, more often strongly toothed, single or double teeth, sometimes bordered by elongate cells; costa single, usually rather broad, percurrent to excurrent, sometimes into long subula; lamellae numerous, usually longitudinally arranged on the ventral surface of costae, sometimes lamellae or spines present on the dorsal surface, without lamellae at sheathing bases and at margins; leaf cells rounded oval, nearly quadrate or irregularly hexagonal, smooth or papillose, thin-walled or thick-walled, cells at sheathing base quadrate to rectangular, mostly hyaline, sometimes yellowish brown. Dioicous or rarely autoicous. Male plants often smaller than female ones. Perigonia terminal, discoid, sometimes the new innovations growing on perichaetia. Female plants rather large. Setae elongate, smooth; capsules terminal or lateral, mostly oblong-ovoid to cylindrical or 4–6-angular, rarely ovoid, spherical or pyriform, smooth or papillose, sometimes slightly inflected, stomata at base of neck; opercula acute or rostrate from a conic base; columella sometimes extended into membrane and connected with peristome teeth and closing the mouth of capsules; annuli not differentiated; peristome single, often consisting of 32 or 64 teeth, rarely 16 or absent, mostly lingulate, connected at their base. Calyptrae cucullate, long conic or campanulate, densely covered with pale, light yellow, golden yellow or reddish hairs, rarely smooth or small spinulose, surrounding the whole capsule or only on its upper portion. Spores spherical or oval, papillose.