Sematophyllaceae

Diagnosis: Plants slender, in ± lustrous, silky, pale-green to grayish green, often extensive, thin mats. Stems creeping, dark-red, to ca. 8 cm long but mostly ca. 3-4 cm, freely and often ± regularly pinnately branched, the branches wide-spreading, short, somewhat complanate-foliate. Stem and branch leaves similar, erect- to wide-spreading, not at all homomallous, lanceolate-ovate to ovate, stem leaves 0.65-1.3 mm long, branch leaves 0.55-1 mm long, gradually acuminate, occasionally the apices twisted in stem leaves, somewhat concave; margins entire or serrulate above, entire below, plane or recurved; cells linear to linear-flexuose, 10-20:1, usually smooth, rarely unipapillose, thick-walled, often porose, not shorter in the acumen; alar cells enlarged, inflated, usually deeply colored across the insertion, oval to oblong, 5-10 × as large as the subquadrate cells above them. Setae elongate, reddish, 1-1.8 cm long; capsules horizontal to pendent, asymmetric, ovoid, 0.8-1.3 mm long; annulus not differentiated. Spores finely papillose, 14-24 µm diameter.

Distribution: Mexico; Central America; Caribbean, South America; tropical Africa

Ecology: Usually growing on rotten logs and less often on limestone or the bases of trees, in moist forest, from near sea level to ca. 1200 m.

Basionym: Hypnum subsimplex Hedw.

Basionym Citation: Species Muscorum Frondosorum 270. 69 f. 11--14. 1801.