326 A MAXL'AL Ol- MOSSES 



Family XXXII. SEMATOPHYLLACEAE. 



Autoicous or dioicous; antheridial clusters gemmiform, 

 small ; archegonial clusters on very short, usually rooting, 

 perichsetial branches : slender to robust, cespitose. green to 

 yellowish or brownish, often lustrous : stem without central 

 strand, creeping to ascending, mostly irregularly branched, 

 sometimes more or less regularly pinnate : paraphyllia none ; 

 leaves pluriseriate, mostly uniform and symmetric, of various 

 forms ; costa double, very short or none ; cells mostly pros- 

 enchymatous, smooth or papillose, in the leaf-angles one row 

 being oblong, inflated, thin-walled : capsule exserted, mostly 

 cernuous to pendent, mostly oval to oblong, usually unsyin- 

 metric, collum weak; exothecial cells collenchymatous; 

 annulus none ; peristome-teeth as long as the segments, the 

 latter rarely lacking, the teeth mostly entirely separate, mainly 

 dorsally striate, lamella mostly well-developed, inner peris- 

 tome free; basal membrane high, segments mostly carinate 

 and lance-subulate, rarely filiform, cilia usually present ; spores 

 mostly small; lid from a convex-conic base slenderly rostrate; 

 calyptra mostly cucullate and glabrous. 



A rather large family almost exclusively of tropic and sub- 

 tropic distribution and mostly living on trees ; in our region 

 there occurs but one ^eiius. as follows : 



1. RHAPHIDOSTEGIUM (Bryologia Europjea) DeXotaris. 



Usually autoicous ; slender to robust, mostly densely and 

 widely cespitose, dark to pale green or yellowish to brownish : 

 stem creeping, more or less elongate, regularly pinnately 

 branched or irregular, with branches horizontally spreading to 

 erect, rather jnlaceous; leaves uniform, non-plicate, concave, 

 oval to oblong or oblong-elliptic, obtuse to piliferous-acumi- 

 nate; usually ecostate, rarely obsoletely bi-costate ; cells nar- 

 rowly prosenchymatous, the apical sometimes rhombic, the 

 basal golden-yellow, narrowly rectangular, incrassate and 

 porose, the alar oblong, inflated, hyaline to yellowish or red- 

 brown and forming a small, non-excavate group bounded 

 above by small quadrate cells ; seta long, mostly smooth ; cap- 

 sule sub-erect or horizontally inclined, oval to oblong, smooth ; 

 peristome hypnoid, teeth lance-subulate, with divisural zigzag, 

 hyaline-bordered, prominently lamellate, especially so in the 

 upper third; peristome-segments yellowish, carinate, with a 

 high basal membrane, mostly split, cilia 1 or 2, nodose, or 

 sometimes rudimentary; spores small, lid slenderly subulate- 

 rostrate ; calyptra glabrous. 



A genus of about 250 species of temperate and warmer 

 regions, occurring mainly on trees and rocks ; about 40 species 

 occur in North America ; 3 or possibly 4 species in our region. 



