Leucobryaceae

Diagnosis: Plants glaucous green, 1-3 cm high. Leaves 3-7 mm long, commonly reddish tinged particularly at the base, crowded and falcate-secund or occasionally erect-spreading, long-lanceolate throughout or gradually narrowed from an ovate-lanceolate base to a slender subtubulose acute apex; costa in cross section at base consisting of a single layer of dorsal leucocysts, a median chlorocysts and a single layer of ventral leucocysts throughout the leaf; leaf lamina narrow, consisting of 3-7 rows of long-rectangular, firm-walled cells at midleaf and 2-5 rows of short-rectangular cells at base. Setae red, straight or flexuose, 10-15 mm long; capsules inclined to curved, 1 mm long, furrowed when dry, strumose; peristome teeth red. Spores 15-22 µm, smooth.

Distribution: Mexico; Central America; Caribbean, Western and Northern South America, Brazil

Ecology: On rotting logs, tree trunks, roots of epiphytic plants and terrestrial.

Basionym: Dicranum martianum Hornsch.

Basionym Citation: Flora Brasiliensis 1(2): 11. 1840.

Type Locality: Brazil

Type Collection: Martius

Other Published Figures: E. B. Bartram. 1949. Mosses of Guatamala. fig. 34 A-C; P. A. Florschutz. 1964. Musci. Flora of Suriname 6(1): 1-271. fig. 33.