Buxbaumiaceae
Authors: W. B. Schofield
Plants microscopic, annual or perennial from persistent protonema. Archegoniate plants composed of a perichaetium of a few, mainly non-chlorophyllose ecostate leaves that enclose very few archegonia. Antheridial plants reduced to a 1-stratose, 2-lipped structure enclosing a single spherical antheridium, arising from a short branch of the protonema. Seta elongate. Capsule usually obliquely oriented, the upper face flat or bulging and often distinguished from the lower by a perimeter ridge, broadly ovate to lance-cylindric; operculum conic, perpendicular to the upper face of the capsule; peristome with endostome 16-pleated, a hyaline cone, one or more rows of articulated exostomial teeth, irregular in number, sometimes rudimentary. Calyptra smooth, conic, barely covering operculum, early deciduous.
Genera 1, species 12 (1 genus, 4 species in the flora): widely distributed in temperate to subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere, also scattered in the tropics.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Edwards, S. R. 1984. Homologies and inter-relationships of moss peristomes: Buxbaumiaceae. In: R. M. Schuster, ed. 1984. New Manual of Bryology. Vol. 2, pp. 680---683. Hattori Bot. Lab., Japan. J. A. Hancock and G.R. Brassard. 1974. Phenology, sporophyte production and life history of Buxbaumia aphylla in Newfoundland, Canada. Bryologist 77: 501---513. Ligrone, R. R., Gambardella, R., Castaldo, S., Giordano, and M.L. de Lucia Sposito. 1982 Gametophyte and sporophyte ultrastructure in Buxbaumia piperi (Buxaumiaceae, Musci) J. Hattori. Bot. Lab. 52: 465---499.
