Sematophyllaceae

Diagnosis: Plants small to medium-sized, in ± dull, golden-green, often dense mats. Stems creeping, to ca. 3 cm long, freely but irregularly branched, the branches often ascending, short, usually < 1 cm long, blunt, curved. Stem and branch leaves similar, mostly homomallous, ovate to oblong-ovate, 0.75-1.2 m long, acute to abruptly short-acuminate, ± concave; margins entire, reflexed above, plane below; costa short and double or commonly absent; cells long-rhomboidal, 6-12:1, smooth, firm- to thick-walled, mostly not or only weakly porose, becoming shorter in the apex, rhomboidal to rounded-rhomboidal, 2-4:1; alar cells enlarged but not conspicuously inflated, colored across the insertion, oval to oblong, usually not more than 2-3 × larger than the quadrate cells above them. Setae elongate, orange to reddish brown, 0.5-1 cm long, straight or curved at base when dry; capsules erect to suberect, ± symmetric, short-cylindric, 1-1.5 mm long, often strongly constricted below the mouth when dry; annulus not differentiated. Spores finely papillose, 15-23 µm diameter.

Distribution: U.S (Florida, Louisiana).; Mexico; Central America; Caribbean, South America; sub-Saharan Africa; probably Asia and Australia

Ecology: Growing mostly on tree trunks and rotten logs, rarely on soil or rock, in mesic to humid forest, often toward the canopy, from near sea level to ca. 1500 m.

Basionym: Leskea subpinnata Brid.

Basionym Citation: Muscologia Recentiorum Supplementum 2: 54. 1812.