小烛藓属

Plants minute to small, yellowish green or brown, in loose tufts or mixed mats. Stems erect, simple or sparsely branched, radiculose only at the base; central strand absent or slightly differentiated. Leaves narrowly ovate-lanceolate to subulate-acuminate from a broader, oblong-ovate base, becoming larger and more crowded above; margins entire, often recurved; costa single, subpercurrent to shortly excurrent, often filling most of the subula; upper cells rectangular to subquadrate, thick-walled, smooth or projecting at the back because of thickened upper ends; lower cells elongate, laxer, thin-walled; alar cells not differentiated. Autoicous or paroicous. Perichaetial leaves larger than the vegetative leaves. Setae very short, erect, or slightly curved; capsules ovoid or obovoid to pyriform to oblong-pyriform, immersed to shortly exserted, ending with a straight apiculus or beak, often with a well developed neck, 1/5 – ½ or more of the total capsule length; opercula and peristome none; stomata numerous in the neck of capsules. Calyptrae mitrate, smooth or coarsely papillose, lobed at the base. Spores large, 20–55 µm in diameter, subreniform, ? warty or pitted, usually with distinct proximal and distal surfaces.

Plants of Bruchia species are very tiny and ephemeral. They are characterized by having mitrate calyptrae, distinctly ornamented spores, and by having cleistocarpous capsules that are somewhat elongate with tapered necks. In a worldwide revision of the genus, Rushing (1986) recognized 15 species. Three species are known from China.

Lower Taxa

• Bruchia microspora Nog.
• Bruchia sinensis P.-C. Chen ex T. Cao & C. Gao
• Bruchia vogesiaca Nestl. ex Schwaegr.