Brachytheciaceae

Diagnosis: Plants small to rather robust, pale- to yellow-green, rarely dark-green, often extensive mats, usually on soil. Stems creeping, irregularly to subpinnately branched, the branches prostrate or ascending. Stem and branch leaves not or slightly differentiated, spreading to wide-spreading, rarely erect, typically ± complanate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate, usually ± abruptly acuminate, the apex often twisted, concave, not plicate; margins serrulate throughout, usually plane above, reflexed below; costa single, relatively slender, tapering distally, ending above midleaf, often projecting as a small spine; cells long-hexagonal to linear, smooth, thin- to firm-walled, not porose; alar cells not or gradually differentiated, then quadrate to short rectangular and lax in a broad band across the insertion. Setae elongate, smooth, reddish; capsules inclined to horizontal, ± arcuate, asymmetric, cylindric to long-cylindric, often with a distinct neck, often constricted below the mouth when dry; operculum obliquely long-rostrate; exostome teeth shouldered, bordered, on the front surface cross-striolate below, coarsely papillose above; endostome mostly finely papillose, with a high basal membrane, perforate or sometimes gaping, ca. as long as the teeth. Spores finely papillose.