OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 131 



Family XII. FUNARIACEAE. 

 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, oblorig-rectangular below, rhombic- 

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

 either erect , symmetric and globose to pyriform, or cernuous 

 and arcuate-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 the Genera. 



a. Capsule immersed. b. 



a. Capsule exserted. c. 



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

 capsule dehiscing equatorially, 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. 

 e. Capsules unsymmetric, peristomate, usually with a double peri- 

 stome. 3. Funaria. 



1. APHANORHEGMA Sullivant. 



Paroicous, rarely synoicous : low, gregarious to almost 

 cespjtose, 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- 

 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 North America : 



