Family: Dicranaceae

Diagnosis: Plants small to robust, in loose to dense, usually radiculose tufts. Stems often erect, simple or forked. Leaves in many rows, usually falcate-secund, mostly narrowly oblong-lanceolate, often broader at the base, subulate in the upper half; margins plane or recurved, entire or serrulate to serrate; costa single, usually strong and long, ending near the leaf apex or excurrent. Upper leaf cells variable in shape, smooth, rarely mammillose or papillose, lower laminal cells often elongate, alar cells often clearly differentiated. Setae mostly elongate, rarely very short, straight, flexuose or cygneous; capsules often exerted, erect, curved or inclined, ovoid, cylindric or pyriform, sometimes strumose at base; opercula generally differentiated, obliquely rostrate from a conic base; annuli present or absent, simple to complex; peristome teeth rarely lacking, usually present, well developed, 16, often reddish, deeply split into 2(-3) divisions, sometimes entire. Calyptra cucullate.