1. Aloina Kindb., Bihang til Kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar. 6(19):22. 1882.
芦荟藓属
Plants small, bud-like, greenish brown to brown, or reddish brown when old, in gregarious or scattered thin tufts. Stems very short, simple, seldom irregularly branched; central strand not differentiated or poorly developed. Leaves thick, fleshy, but rigid, usually incurved or slightly tubulose when dry, erect or erect-spreading when moist, ovate or broadly ellipsoid to ligulate, upper lamina deeply channeled, cucullate or rounded at the apex, with concave and broad, clearly sheathing hyaline base; margins entire to subentire, strongly inflexed, marginal cells usually hyaline in several rows, forming a broad, indistinct border extending well above shoulders; costa flat and broad, subpercurrent to percurrent, or sometimes long-excurrent as a smooth or serrate awn, ventrally bearing many green, branched filaments from midleaf to the leaf apex, the filaments with terminal cells enlarged and thick-walled; lower leaf cells oblong, hyaline, thin-walled near costa, quadrate, thick-walled near shoulders; upper cells bistratose on both sides of costa, transversely irregularly rectangular or rhomboidal, thick-walled, smooth, green. Dioicous or monoicous. Perichaetial leaves not much differentiated from stem leaves, only slightly larger. Setae elongate, slender, reddish brown or purple; capsules erect, cylindric or narrowly oblong-ovoid, more or less symmetrical; annuli differentiated, usually persistent; peristome teeth 16, split into 32 long, filiform divisions, twisted in 1 or more counterclockwise spirals, densely papillose; basal membrane low; opercula mostly obliquely rostrate. Calyptrae cucullate, smooth. Spores small, yellowish green, mostly smooth, rarely papillose.
The genus consists of twelve species in the world. Most of the species are distributed in cold temperate regions, growing on soil or occasionally on calcareous rocks. Three species are known from China.
