Leucobryaceae

Diagnosis: Plants in loose to dense turfs, glaucous green, occasionally with a tinge of pink, 0.8-2 cm high; stems with erect, more or less parallel innovations. Leaves fragile or if sturdy some broken, erect-spreading to flexuose-secund, shiny with a broad hyaline lamina abruptly narrowed to the strap-shaped upper leaf, mucronate to nearly truncate, 5-9 mm long; margins entire, sharply to inconspicuously and obtusely dentate at apex, smooth below, slightly undulate above; upper laminal cells irregularly short hexagonal, quadrate or pentagonal, 45-60 µm in longest dimension; leaf cross section elliptic at middle, central layer of chlorocysts surrounded by 2(-3) layers or porose hyaline cells on each surface. Setae 5-8 mm long, light yellow above, orange-red below; capsule erect to subinclined, cylindrical, orange-red, slightly contracted under mouth, bulging papillose at base; peristome of 16 elongate, paired teeth, articulate, trabeculate with papillose, bar-like thickenings and central circular depressions. Spores 15-18 µm in diameter.

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

Ecology: Epiphytic on trees (particularly palms), shrubs, rotten wood, humus, occasionally on rock, 10-1000 m.

Basionym: Arthrocormus pulvinatus Dozy & Molk.

Basionym Citation: Prodromus Florae Bryologicae Surinamensis 6. 2. 1854.

Type Locality: Suriname

Type Collection: Splitgerber 1214

Types Deposited at: Holotype: NY; Isotypes: BR, L

Other Published Figures: E. B. Bartram. 1949. Mosses of Guatemala. fig. 32 E-G; P. A. Florschutz. 1964. Musci. Flora of Suriname 6(1): 1-271. fig. 38 A-I.