Hypnaceae

Diagnosis: Plants mostly medium-sized, dark- to pale-green to golden, often extensive, thin mats. Stems creeping, irregularly but freely branched to regularly pinnate, the branches mostly simple, often straight when dry, somewhat recurved when moist. Stem and branch leaves differentiated, often contorted when dry, sometimes falcate-secund, the lateral and ventral ones similar, the dorsal ones somewhat shorter pointed and with laxer areolation, ovate-lanceolate to broadly ovate, acute to acuminate; margins entire to serrate, plane; costa short and double or absent; cells hexagonal to sublinear, broad, smooth, mostly thin-walled, becoming shorter and rectangular toward the insertion; alar cells not differentiated; ventral leaves mostly lanceolate, short- to long-acuminate; margins serrulate, plane; costa often lacking; cells longer than in later and dorsal leaves. Setae elongate, reddish, flexuose, curved just below the urn; capsules horizontal to pendent, short, ovoid to short-cylindric, sometimes constricted below the mouth when dry; annulus differentiated; operculum apiculate to short conic-rostrate; peristome double, exostome teeth shouldered, bordered, on the front surface cross-striolate below, coarsely papillose above. Calyptra cucullate, naked, smooth. Spores spherical, finely papillose, small.