Pilotrichaceae

Diagnosis: Plants medium-sized, in lustrous or dull, green, golden or brownish, mostly dense mats; stems to ca. 1.5-4 cm long, subpinnately to irregularly branched, densely foliate. Leaves contorted when dry, the lateral ones erect-spreading, the dorsal and ventral ones erect, oblong to oblong-ovate, typically broadly rounded at the apex, often apiculate, sometimes acute, rarely short-acuminate, 0.7-1.5 x 0.5-0.6 mm; margins typically serrulate to serrate above, with ± swollen and often bifid teeth, plane, not or obscurely bordered below; costa mostly subpercurrent, ending ca. 5 cells below margins, the upper 1/4 typically converging; cells ± isodiametric, ca. 9 µm wide, usually with a single papilla over each lumin, rarely smooth, thin- to firm-walled, at midleaf sometimes becoming hexagonal, ca. 2-3:1, otherwise like upper ones, becoming short-rectangular, smooth, and often colored across the insertion. Setae smooth throughout or roughened above to throughout, reddish, 0/6-1.5 cm long, flexuose, curved at extreme apex; capsules inclined to pendent, ovoid to cylindric, 0.7-1.3 mm long, often with a roughened neck.

Distribution: U.S (Florida, Louisiana).; Mexico; Central America; Caribbean, South America

Ecology: In non-flooded moist forest and montane forest, very common, 150-1100 m, on soil, humus, wood and rock.

Basionym: Hookeria pallida Hornsch.

Basionym Citation: Flora Brasiliensis 1(2): 64. pl. 3: f. 1. 1840.

Other Published Figures: W. R. Buck. 1998. Pleurocarpous mosses of the West Indies. Plate 23 (9-18).