font settings

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

Schlotheimia

(Genus)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Plants medium-sized, in dense, tomentose, usually reddish-brown mats on trees. Stems creeping, with numerous, ascending, stout, usually forked branches up to 2 cm high. Branch leaves appressed to loosely-appressed, erect, often spirally-twisted around stem when dry, narrowly lanceolate to oblong-ligulate, usually acute, apiculate or long-cuspidate, sometimes rugose; margins entire; costa strong, excurrent or ending at apex; distal laminal cells small, rarely greater than 10 µm, rounded, thick-walled, usually smooth; basal laminal cells elongate, porose.< b>Sexual condition pseudautoicous, dwarf male plants on leaves of female plant. Seta smooth. Capsule fully exserted, rarely immersed; elliptic to cylindric, erect, usually smooth or lightly plicate; stomates superficial; peristome double; endostome segments 16, shorter than exostome, pale sometimes rudimentary; exostome teeth 16, well-developed, linear-lanceolate, often blunt, erect or recurved, thick densely papillose-striate. Calyptra mitrate, long-conic to campanulate, 4--6 lobed at base, naked or hairy, usually covering entire capsule. Spores anisosmorphic.

Species 100--150; pantropical; Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, Australia, Pacific Islands (New Zealand).

The distinctive dark-reddish coloration, habit in tree canopies and on tree trunks, and 4--6 lobed, campanulate calyptra are diagnostic features of this genus.[1]

Photos

[ Back to top ]

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

The Genus Schlotheimia is further organized into finer groupings including:

Footnotes

[ Back to top ]
  1. Dale H. Vitt "Schlotheimia". in Bryophyte Flora of North America Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Sources

[ Back to top ]
Last Revised: November 21, 2008