font settings

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia

Pottiales

(Order)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Pottiales is an order of mosses in the subclass Dicranidae.

[ Back to top ]

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

The Order Pottiales is further organized into finer groupings including:

Families

[ Back to top ]

Bryobartramiaceae

[more]

Calymperaceae

Plants small to medium-sized, mostly erect [prostrate and with ascending branches], in tufts, cushions, or gregarious, rarely single or in tufts of a few; dark green to yellowish brown stems. Stems simple or forked; central strand absent; rhizoids brown to red or dark purple, scanty to numerous, sometimes abundant and conspicuous; axillary hairs 2 to many per axil, proximal cells short and colored, or undifferentiated. Leaves often slightly to strongly dimorphic, mostly variously contorted when dry, straight and erect-ascending when moist, teniolae (intramarginal files of differentiated cells) present (in some Calymperes) or absent; proximal portion of leaves commonly sheathing, including usually conspicuous areas of smooth, enlarged, hyaline, internally and externally porose cells (cancellinae) ; distal portion of leaves oblong to ligulate, lanceolate, acuminate, or narrowly long-linear; margins of distal lamina mostly thickened and toothed, sometimes bordered entirely or in part with elongate hyaline cells; costa single, strong, percurrent to excurrent, in cross section showing a median row of guide cells with abaxial and adaxial bands of stereid cells (the ad- and abaxial bands of cells rarely thin-walled and parenchyma-like) ; medial cells of distal lamina mostly isodiametric, rarely transversely elongate, mostly variously papillose. Specialized asexual reproduction common by seriate-multicellular, fusiform-clavate to filiform gemmae, borne mostly adaxially on apices of often highly modified leaves. Sexual condition mostly dioicous, rarely monoicous; perigonia axillary, gemmiform, with highly reduced leaves; perichaetia terminal but quickly overtopped by innovations and then appearing lateral, leaves few, scarcely different from cauline leaves. Seta single, yellow to red, mostly elongate, smooth, erect. Capsule erect, mostly exserted, rarely immersed, yellowish to brown, mostly cylindric, smooth; stomata scanty, on neck, phaneropore; annulus differentiated in several rows of cells; operculum rostrate; peristome single, often vestigial or absent, teeth 16, variously papillose on external surface, mostly smooth on internal surface, with weak transverse bars. Calyptra cucullate and deciduous or rarely conic-mitrate, sometimes clasping the seta below the capsule and persistent and the spores then escaping through vertical fissures in the calyptra, naked, smooth or papillose, sometimes plicate. Spores spherical, mostly granular-papillose.[1] [more]

Cinclidotaceae

[more]

Ephemeraceae

Plants leafy ephemerals, less than 3 mm, solitary, scattered, or gregarious on sparse or abundant protonemata with upright, aerial, determinate branches, green, pale-yellow, or brown. Stem virtually absent or to 1 mm (to 3.7 mm in Micromitrium synoicum), rhizoids absent or few. Leaves rarely more than 12, the proximal small, broadly triangular to ovate, ecostate, apex acuminate, the distal becoming larger, linear, lanceolate, or ligulate, with or without shoulders, margins distal to the middle entire, serrulate, serrate, or spinose, apex acuminate; costate or ecostate; laminal cells lax and transparent, long-rhomboidal to rectangular, in some species becoming denser distally, smooth, papillose by projecting distal ends, or spinose. Specialized asexual reproduction by fragments and rarely by thick-walled elongate, swollen protonematal segments, commonly brown, and persisting on or in the soil. Sexual condition autoicous, dioicous, or synoicous. Perigonia arising from the protonemata, from rhizoids, or just proximal to the perichaetium; small, bud-like with ecostate leaves of lax areolation, broadly triangular to broadly ovate. Perichaetium consisting of the 1-3 most distal leaves on the stem, typically the largest and best developed. Vaginula conspicuous. Sporophytes 1-3 per perichaetium with immersed to emerging capsules. Seta virtually absent or very short. Capsule globose or ovoid, without or with an apiculus, cleistocarpous or opening along an indistinct or distinct ring of cells near the equator; exothecium of 1-2 layers of lax and thin-walled cells; stomates absent or superficial with two guard cells. Calyptra persistent, mitrate, and minute, or fugacious, mitrate or cucullate, and irregularly lobed or torn at the base, covering up to 2/3 of the capsule. Spores appearing reniform, globose, or variously angled, 20-120 µm, ranging from barely papillose to coarsely warty, the elaboration often correlating with degree of maturity, usually bearing small remnants of a hyaline membrane, orange, red, brown, or black.[2] [more]

Pottiaceae

Pottiaceae is a family of mosses. It forms the most numerous moss family known, containing nearly 1500 species or more than 10% of the 10,000 to 15,000 moss species known. [more]

Serpotortellaceae

[more]

More info about the Family Serpotortellaceae may be found here.

Bibliography

[ Back to top ]

Footnotes

[ Back to top ]
  1. William D. Reese "Calymperaceae". in Flora of North America Vol. 27 Page 654, 663. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org.
  2. Virginia S. Bryan "Ephemeraceae". in Flora of North America Vol. 27 Page 646, 653. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Sources

[ Back to top ]
Last Revised: August 24, 2012
2012/08/24 13:14:06