Plants in thin to dense mats, light green to yellowish or brownish, glossy. Stems with central strand absent or poorly developed; axillary hair apical cells 3[–6]. Stem and branch leaves similar, stiff to lax, close to distant, imbricate and somewhat contorted when dry, erect-spreading when moist, sometimes homomallous toward substrate, ovate-lanceolate to oblong-ovate, symmetric or asymmetric, not plicate, rarely wrinkled; margins plane or incurved proximally, serrulate to entire proximally, serrate to serrulate distally, sometimes entire throughout; apex acuminate, rarely acute or obtuse; costa 1/3–1/2 leaf length; laminal cell walls thin; distal cells broadly fusiform with tapering ends, sometimes short, rhomboidal in obtuse leaves, smooth or occasionally prorulose at distal ends on abaxial surface. Perigonia with leaves ecostate. Perichaetia at base of stems, leaves ovate, costate to ecostate within one perichaetium, proximal laminal cells laxly rectangular, distal cells linear-rhomboidal. Seta orange to reddish, straight to somewhat flexuose. Capsule erect, inclined, or cernuous, orange to brown, cylindric, ellipsoid, or ovoid; exothecial cell walls thin; annulus often falling with operculum, 2- or 3-seriate, cell walls firm; operculum obliquely conic to short-rostrate; exostome teeth shouldered, internal surface strongly to scarcely projecting; endostome smooth or papillose, basal membrane high to low, segments somewhat shorter than teeth, cilia 1–3, sometimes rudimentary, shorter than segments. Spores spheric to ovoid, 15–27 µm.

Distribution

Fla., Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America, Asia, Africa.

Discussion

Species ca. 17 (1 in the flora).

A. J. Grout (1945) revised the North and Central American species, placing them in the genus Stereophyllum.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Entodontopsis leucostega