Pottiaceae

Diagnosis: Plants yellow-green to brown. Stems rarely branched, up to 25 mm tall. Propagula often present, axillary, stalked, consisting of 3-50 cells, green to brown, obovoid. clavate, spindle-shaped, ellipsoidal or globose. Leaves crowded to ± distant, nearly uniform in size, when dry erect-incurved, often infolded above, when moist erect-spreading, straight or incurved, 0.5-2 mm long, ovate to ligulate, occasionally lanceolate or long triangular, grooved at the costa, rounded to bluntly acute, apiculate by a single pellucid cell, the base scarcely differentiated to much broadened and square, rectangular or oval; margins plane to slightly recurved at midleaf, entire; costa percurrent to ending 1-4 cells below an apiculate apex or occasionally excurrent as a sharp mucro; upper cells quadrate, 7-10 µm wide, with 4-8 low, mostly hollow papillae per cell; basal cells 8-12 µm wide, 2-5:1, rectangular. Setae 7-13 mm long, red-brown; capsules red-brown, ellipsoidal to ovoid, occasionally curved; operculum short- to long-conic; peristome divisions ± fused in pairs, with many articulations, red to orange. Spores smooth to weakly papillose, 8-12 µm diameter.

Distribution: cosmopolitan

Ecology: On soil, limestone rock or walls, on banks of roads or streams, sometimes on bark, at sea level up to 3900 m.

Notes: The species typically has ligulate leaves that are deeply grooved along the costa on the upper ventral surface, weakly recurved leaf margins, rounded to bluntly acute and apiculate leaf apices, round, densely papillose cells on the upper, dorsal surface of the costa, and numerous axillary propagula.

Basionym: Tortula indica Hook.

Basionym Citation: Musci Exotici 2: 135. 1819.

Type Locality: India. In India orientali.

Type Collection: Rottler

Other Published Figures: E. B. Bartram. 1949. Mosses of Guatamala. fig. 58 A-D as B. pringlei; Crum & Anderson. 1981. Mosses of Eastern N.A. fig. 153 H-O as B. cancellata; B. Allen. 2002. Moss Flora of Central America. fig. 10.