Conostomum Swartz in F. Weber & D. Mohr, Naturh. Reise Schwedens. 122. 1804.
[Latin conos, cone-shaped, and stoma, opening]
D. Griffin, III
Plants in dense, glaucous or yellow green tufts. Stems 0.5--1(--8) cm, brown and radiculose below, rhizoids smooth. Leaves lanceolate, acuminate or rarely blunt, keeled, imbricate, appressed dry or moist, in 5 distinct rows; margins plane or narrowly revolute in distal 1/2--2/3, serrulate to subentire; costa percurrent to excurrent, sometimes subpercurrent in proximal leaves, mammillose-toothed abaxially; distal cells rectangular or short-rhomboidal, firm-walled, smooth or mammillose at distal ends on both surfaces; proximal cells rectangular, laxer than those distally; alar cells undifferentiated. Specialized asexual reproduction unknown. Sexual condition dioicous or autoicous, perigonia large, cupulate or gemmiform with subclavate paraphyses; perichaetial leaves larger than stem leaves. Seta solitary, elongate, variable in length, smooth. Capsule erect to inclined, slightly asymmetric, broadly obovoid to oblong from a short swollen neck, wrinkled and furrowed when dry; annulus lacking; operculum conic, stoutly beaked, usually oblique; peristome single or, rarely, lacking, teeth linear-lanceolate, smooth to somewhat papillose at base, narrowly bordered, fused at the tips forming a perforated cone. Spores large, nearly smooth to coarsely papillose.
Species 7--15 (1 in the flora); North America; Mexico; West Indies; South America; Europe; Asia; Africa; Pacific Islands.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Crum, H.A. and L.E. Anderson. 1981. Mosses of Eastern North America. Vol. 1, pp. 641-642. New York. Flowers, S. 1935. Conostomum. In: A.J. Grout, ed. 1935. Moss Flora of North America 2(3): 154. Newfane, Vermont. Frahm, J.-P., Heike Borner, Nikola Streiber, Bernd Wallau and Stefan Weitkus. Revision der Gattung Conostomum (Musci; Bartramiaceae). Trop. Bryol. 12: 97--114. Lawton, E. 1971. Moss Flora of the Pacific Northwest. Nichinan.
