Family: Brachytheciaceae

Diagnosis: Plants slender to robust, in lax or dense mats or tufts, often ± shiny. Stems creeping to ascending, rarely erect, freely and irregularly to pinnately branched. Leaves appressed to erect-spreading, occasionally ± secund, mostly plicate, broadly ovate to lanceolate, ± long-acuminate (or, rarely, blunt or rounded at the apex); costa single and well developed, mostly ending below the apex, frequently projecting at the tip as a dorsal spine; cells mostly elongate, rhomboidal to linear-flexuose, smooth or, rarely, papillose at back because of projecting upper angles, laxer and often porose at the base, mostly subquadrate at the basal angles, sometimes forming well-marked alar groups. Setae ± elongate, frequently rough; capsules mostly inclined to horizontal, rarely erect and symmetric, mostly relatively short, ovoid or oblong-cylindric and asymmetric, ± curved when dry and empty; annulus usually poorly differentiated; operculum conic, often rostrate; peristome double. Calyptra cucullate, smooth, usually naked. Spores spherical.