Plants in tufts, light green to yellow-green. Stems 1-6 cm; densely radiculose proximally. Stem leaves lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate; margins entire; apex long-acuminate; costa excurrent; proximal laminal cells rectangular; distal cells rectangular. Sexual condition autoicous. Seta 1-3 cm, straight or slightly twisted basally, usually strongly twisted immediately below capsule. Capsule cleistocarpous, dark red, oblong-ovate or ovate-globose; hypophysis absent; annulus absent; operculum not differentiated; peristome absent. Calyptra cucullate, enlarged, completely covering capsule, sometimes split at base. Spores 7-18 µm, smooth.

Species 2 (2 in the flora): w North America, n Eurasia; circumboreal and in mountainous regions.

Plants of Voitia are coprophilic, but as they are cleistocarpous, they do not have spores dispersed by flies (order Diptera). Spores are released by the disintegration of the sporangial wall. The dark red capsule is quite distinct, and the two species are easily distinguished by capsule shape. The stems of this genus are often branched; the leaf margins are more or less incurved; and the basal laminal cells are 55-95 µm. The perigonia and perichaetia are terminal on separate branches; the setae are yellowish to dark red, darkest distally. The stem leaves are slightly contorted when dry and erect-spreading when moist.

SELECTED REFERENCE Goffinet, B. and A. J. Shaw. 2002. Independent origins of cleistocarpy in the Splachnaceae: Analyses of cpDNA sequences and polyphyly of the Voitioideae (Bryophyta). Syst. Bot. 27: 203-208.

Lower Taxa

• Voitia hyperborea Greville & Arnott
• Voitia nivalis Hornschuch