Ol- WESTERN PEXXSYLVAXIA 131 



Family XII. Fl'XARIACEAE. 



Autoicous or paroicous, rarely dioicous or synoicous : 

 annual or rarely biennial, low. mostly light green, gregarious 

 or loosely cespitose : stem mostly with a central strand, radicu- 

 lose only at the base ; leaves soft, wide, the upper larger and 

 forming a rosette, concave, margin plane to involute, entire or 

 denticulate upwards, sometimes bordered ; costa delicate, rarely 

 excurrent, with two large basal guides, rarely lacking; leaf- 

 cells large, parenchymatous, thin-walled, never papillose, but 

 slightly chlorophyllose, oblong-rectangular below, rhombic- 

 hexagonal above: seta mostly erect and red, twisted; capsule 

 either erect , symmetric and globose to pyriform, or cernuous 

 and arcnate-pyriform ; collum mostly distinct ; annulus rarely 

 present ; peristome inserted back of the periphery to the dis- 

 tance of the thickness of several cells, simple or double, rudi- 

 mentary or none ; teeth 16. obliquely dextrorse, strongly 

 trabeculate ; segments 16, opposite the teeth, with no basal 

 membrane; columella mostly thick; spores mostly medium- 

 sized; operculum mostly weakly convex, sometimes umbonate 

 or none : calyptra various, often inflated, usually rostrate and 

 cucullate. 



Key to flic Genera. 



a. Capsule immersed. b. 



a. Capsule exserted. c. 



b. Cells of capsule-wall with thickened angles (collenchymatous) 

 capsule dehiscing equatorial!}', with no modified cells at the 

 line of splitting. i. Aphanorhegma. 



b. Cells of capsule-wall not collenchymatous; capsule operculate 

 and with one to three rows of thickened cells around the 

 mouth. 2. Physcomitrium. 



c. Capsules symmetric, erect, gymnostomous. 2. Physcomitrium. 

 c. Capsules unsymmetric. peristomate. usually with a double peri- 

 stome. 3- Funana. 



1. APHAXORHEGMA Sullivant. 

 Paroicous, rarelv svnoicous : low, gregarious to almost 



f ^ 



cespitose, pale green ; stem radiculose at base, loosely foliate 

 below, densely foliate above; leaves spreading or the upper 

 almost erect, obovate to oblong or spatulate-lanceolate, acute, 

 serrate in the upper half; costa ending below the apex; leaf- 

 cells lax, the basal rectangular, the upper oblong-hexagonal, 

 the marginal forming a narrow uniseriate border: seta rudi- 



C^ CJ 



mentary ; capsule spherical, without a collum. laxly areolate, 

 the cells at the mouth collenchymatous; annulus none; peri- 

 stome none ; spores large, densely spinulose : operculum half- 

 spherical, of same size as urn, obtusely apiculate : calyptra 

 conic-mitrate, lobed, glabrous. 



A genus of two species, on damp soil. One in Cuba and 

 the following one in temperate Xorth America: 



