Fam. 18. MNIACE^. 



Robust mosses, the stems generally tall and densely tomentose, 

 with numerous branches or creeping stolons and flagella. Leaves large 

 and accrescent upward into a coma, firm, broadly ovate, elliptic or 

 Ungulate, often with a thickened and dentate limb. Cells smooth or 

 very rarely papillose, long and rectangular at base, rounded-hexagonal 

 above, chlorophyllose or strongly mcrassate. Capsule on a long rigid 

 seta, often several in one perichsetium, longish-oval or subcylindric, 

 cernuous ; calyptra small, cucullate ; peristome highly developed, bryoid. 

 Male infl. terminal discoid. Inhabiting bogs, heathy ground and 

 woodlands. 



This fine family comprises about 100 species, and its fruit closely 

 resembles that of Bryum but is more cylindric, and as in that genus the 

 peristomes attain their highest development among the acrocarpous mosses. 

 The genus Rhizogonium of some 30 species is almost entirely confined to the 

 southern hemisphere and is remarkable for its basal fructification. Lindberg 

 separates Rhiz. micwphyllum as the genus Trachycystis, standing near Orthopyxis 

 by its papillose leaves ; R. acanthoneuron as Leucolepis, and R. subbasilare as 

 Goniobryum, both having lax funarioid areolation as in Amblyodon. 



Sect. i. GYMNOCYBE^:. Stem branched, often with slender sterile 

 shoots or pseudopodia, which are leafless or bearing a few small scattered 

 leaves below, and at apex a cluster of gemmae. Leaves in 8 rows, cells small, 

 each with a long papilla on both sides. Caps, oval or subcylindric, 8-striate, 

 costate when dry. 



i. GYMNOCYBE Fries. 



St. agr. femsj, 27 (1825). 



Bog mosses with the habit of Dicranum Bergeri, often bearing 

 pseudopodia, naked or with undeveloped leaves. Leaves oblongo- 

 lanceolate, imbricated, the cells at base in 2 3 strata, large empty and 

 pellucid, quadrato-rectangular, those above minute rounded, strongly 

 incrassate, with trigonous interspaces and a large central papilla on 

 each side. Capsule irregular oblique, teeth of peristome subulate, 

 processes of endostome cleft in the keel, cilia 23. Male infl. discoid 

 with clavate paraphyses. Der. yiy/os naked, Kv(3r] a head. 



