8. Taxithelium Spruce ex Mitten, J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 12: [20-]21, 496. 1869. • [Greek taxis, order, and thele, nipple, alluding to single row of papillae over cell lumina].
Wilfred B. Schofield
Plants small, yellow-green, somewhat glossy. Stems 1-10 cm, complanate-foliate, irregularly to regularly pinnate. Leaves spreading to appressed, narrowly to broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate; margins entire or weakly to sharply toothed; apex short-acuminate; ecostate or costa double; alar cells rounded-rhomboid, enlarged or weakly inflated, pigmented, walls thin, without proximal row of inflated, elongate cells, middle lamella not apparent, supra-alar cells differentiated; laminal cells rhomboid to linear, 1-seriate multipapillose. Sexual condition autoicous. Seta 1.5 cm. Capsule inclined to horizontal, ovoid; exothecial cell walls not or weakly collenchymatous; operculum conic, short- or long-rostrate.
Species ca. 40 (1 in the flora): Florida, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia.
Taxithelium occurs mainly in forests, generally as corticolous on tree trunks and branches, but also on logs, occasionally on rock and soil.
SELECTED REFERENCE Dumanhuri, A. andr. E. Longton. 1996. Towards a revision of the moss genus Taxithelium (Sematophyllaceae). Anales Inst. Biol. Univ. Nac. Autón. México, Bot. 67: 35-58.
