Fissidentaceae

Diagnosis: Plants small, 2.5-5 mm tall. Leaves ca. 1.3 x 0.3 mm, obtuse or rounded-acute, vaginant laminae unequal; margins crenulate-serrulate, limbate in lower 1/2 or less of most vaginant laminae; costa subpercurrent; cells rounded-hexagonal, 4-6 µm in diameter, pluripapillose.

Distribution: Central America; Caibbean; Western and Northern South America, Brazil

Ecology: In non-flooded moist forest, 20-1600 m, on soil, termite mounds and bases of small trees.

Notes: Fissidens guianensis is a very common species of the lowland rain forest. The only other pluripapillose species in our area is F. intramarginatus which differs from F. guianensis in having the limbidium extending the complete length of the vaginant laminae.

Type Citation: Annales des Sciences Naturelles; Botanique, sér. 2, 14: 340. 1840.

Type Locality: French Guiana

Type Collection: Leprieur 315

Types Deposited at: Holotype: BM; Isotypes: PC

Other Published Figures: P. A. Florschutz. 1964. Musci. Flora of Surinam 6(1): 1-271. fig. 12a; R.A. Pursell. 1984. J. Hattori Bot. Lab. 55: 235-252. figs. 35-37.