Flora of North America species comparison

short, erect, simple or with a few branches, central strand present, basal rhizoids few.

3–3.5 mm, erect, simple or forked.

usually larger and more crowded distally, often comose, reduced proximally, usually contorted when dry, spreading when wet, broadly elliptic to obovate, usually concave, margins plane to somewhat incurved, entire to serrate, sometimes limbate, apex acute to acuminate, rarely somewhat blunt, costa single, percurrent to excurrent;

distal and median cells usually irregular-rhombic to hexagonal or rectangular, smooth and rather thin-walled, often lax, weakly chlorophyllose, proximal cells usually longer, oblong to rectangular, sometimes weakly inflated at proximal angles, differentiated alar cells absent.

somewhat crisped when dry, erect-spreading when moist, lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or obovate, plane to weakly concave, 2–2.5 mm;

margins entire to serrulate distally;

apices acuminate;

costa single, extending 1/2–2/3 of the leaf length, occasionally slightly forked at apex, or percurrent;

proximal laminal cells rectangular, distal cells short-rectangular to rhombic with narrow ends.

terminal, solitary, short to elongate, erect to somewhat curved, smooth or rarely papillose.

erect, to 0.2 mm.

autoicous, sometimes polygamous, rarely synoicous or paroicous.

paroicous.

stegocarpous or cleistocarpous, immersed to exserted, globose or pyriform to cupulate, sometimes flaring, symmetric and nearly smooth to asymmetric and striate when dry, usually with a neck;

exothecial cells thick- to thin-walled;

stomata restricted to neck, consisting of a slit in a rounded guard cell, superficial or immersed, annulus present or absent, revoluble, revoluble in fragments, or not;

operculum present or absent, flat, conic-rounded, to rostrate;

peristome double, single, rudimentary, or absent, exostome teeth 16, erect to incurved, papillose-striolate or striate, trabeculate on adaxial surface, endostome segments 16 and opposite the exostome teeth, cilia absent, represented only by the exostome when single.

cleistocarpous, erect, immersed, symmetric, globose and apiculate, to 0.8 mm, wrinkled upon aging;

exothecial cells irregular in shape, usually thin-walled;

stomata with single guard cell, restricted to base of capsule, superficial;

annulus none;

operculum not differentiated, dehiscence irregular;

peristome absent.

deciduous or persistent, mitrate to cucullate, smooth, usually long-rostrate and inflated towards the base.

conic-mitrate, not or slightly lobed, small, covering apiculus of capsule only, smooth.

spherical or subreniform, strongly ornamented to smooth.

spherical to slightly elliptical, densely papillose to slightly spinulose.

asexual reproduction absent.

terminal on short basal branches, bud-like, paraphyses yellowish and club-shaped.

terminal, paraphyses usually absent and filiform when present, perichaetial leaves often somewhat enlarged.