Sematophyllaceae

Diagnosis: Plants slender to medium-sized, yellow-green, thin, often extensive, flat mats. Stems long-creeping, to ca. 15 cm long, but usually < 10 cm, subpinnately branched, the branches prostrate to slightly ascending, complanate- to terete-foliate. Stem and branch leaves ± similar, erect-spreading, crowded, complanate to terete, narrowly to broadly ovate, 0.6-1.2 mm long, obtuse or acute to short-acuminate, concave; margins serrulate nearly to base, sometimes doubly so, plane; costa short and double or absent; cells linear, seriately pluripapillose with 5-9 papillae over each lumen at back, the papillae small and blunt, sometimes variously branched, becoming shorter and smooth in the apex, becoming shorter, smooth, thick-walled, and porose toward the insertion; alar cells 2-4 large, inflated, occasionally colored, with small marginal group of quadrate, thin-walled cells above them. Setae elongate, reddish, 0.8-2 cm long, usually curved at base of urn; capsules inclined, asymmetric, ovoid to short-cylindric, ca. 1 mm long. Spores almost smooth or finely papillose, 10-15 µm diameter.

Distribution: U.S (Florida); Mexico; Central America; Caribbean, South America; tropical Africa; India; southeastern Asia; northern Australia

Ecology: Growing on almost all substrates, but most common on soil, rotten wood and tree

Basionym: Hypnum planum Brid.

Basionym Citation: Muscologia Recentiorum Supplementum 2: 97. 1812.

Other Published Figures: W. R. Buck. 1998. Pleurocarpous mosses of the West Indies. Plate 142 (12-17).