Meesiaceae
Auoticous, synoicous or dioicous. Asexual reproduction by rhizoidal tubers, gemmae in leaf axils, or deciduous brood branchlets. Dense tufts or turves on soil or rocks. Stems erect to ascending, sparsely branched by innovation or forking, densely or sparsely covered with dark rhizoids at least at base; central strand present. Leaves arranged around stem and facing all directions or in three distinct ranks, monomorphic or larger and crowded in an apical coma, erect, erect-spreading, or squarrose when moist, erect to flexuose or crisped when dry, bases often sheathing stem; apex subulate, acute, obtuse or rounded, without a hairpoint; costa subpercurrent, percurrent, or excurrent, rarely ending well below apex (not in Victoria), broad and occupying around a third of the leaf base width or narrow (not in Victoria); margin entire or sometimes toothed near apex, plane or recurved, without a border; laminal cells quadrate, rhomboidal to elongate-rectangular, sometimes longer toward base, smooth or rarely mammillose (not in Victoria); alar cells not differentiated. Acrocarpous. Perichaetial leaves longer than vegetative leaves. Capsule erect to pendulous, curved, with a long apophysis, exserted, operculate; annulus present, revoluble. Calyptra cucullate, glabrous, smooth. Operculum convex or short-conic, often apiculate. Peristome double and alternate; exostome of 16 entire teeth; endostome of 16 segments arising from a low or high basal membrane; cilia present or absent.
Widespread around the world, but rarely recorded from Africa and the tropics (New Guinea, Colombia and Brazil) and comprising five genera and 13 species; two genera and three species in Victoria.
Leptobryum is now placed in the Meesiaceae (e.g. Buck & Goffinet 2000), instead of in the Bryaceae where it was traditionally placed (Brotherus 1925), based on its close position to genera of the Meesiaceae in phylogenies of chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequences (Cox & Hedderson 1999; Cox et al. 2000). The Meesiaceae are characterised by a curved capsule with a long apophysis that abruptly expands into the urn (Vitt 2014).
SpinningBrotherus, V.F. (1925). Musci (Laubmoos), in Engler, A. (ed.), Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edition 2. Bd 11. Engelmann, Leipzig.
Buck, W.R.; Goffinet, B. (2000). Morphology and classification of mosses, in Shaw, A.J. & Goffinet, B. (eds.), Bryophyte Biology, pp. 71–123. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Cox, C.J.; Goffinet, B.; Newton, A.E.; Shaw, A.J.; Hedderson, T.A.G (2000). Phylogenetic relationships among the diplolepideous-alternate mosses (Bryidae) inferred from nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences. The Bryologist 103: 224–241.
Cox, C.J.; Hedderson, T.A.J. (1999). Phylogenetic relationships among the ciliate arthrodontous mosses: evidence from chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequences. *Plant Systematics and Evolution * 215: 119–139.
Vitt, D.H. (2014). Meesiaceae, in Flora of North America Editorial Committee (eds), Flora of North America, vol. 28: Bryophyta, part 2, pp. 30–34. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford.
