Macromitrium Bridel, Musc. Rec. suppl. 4 (Mant. Musc.). 132. 1819.
[Name refers to long, large calyptra]
Dale H. Vitt
Plants in dense mats on rocks and trees. Stems creeping with numerous, ascending to erect, simple or forked branches. Branch leaves contorted, spirally twisted, or crisped, rarely erect-appressed when dry, lanceolate, obtuse, sometimes apiculate; margins entire to crenulate; costa percurrent to excurrent; distal laminal cells rounded, bulging, papillose or mammillose; basal laminal cells elongate, thick-walled, tuberculate or smooth. Sexual condition autoicous. Seta 5--12 mm, dextrose. Capsule ovate, becoming narrowly ovate to ovate-oblong when old and dry, plicate below mouth; exothecial cells not differentiated; stomates superficial at base of capsule; peristome single, of 16, rudimentary, pale, delicate, sparsely-striate teeth. Stomates superficial. Calyptrae mitrate, usually covering more than 1/2 the capsule, plicate, lacerate. Spores isomorphic or anisomorphic.
Species ca. 460 (1 in the flora); North, Central, and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia.
Prostrate creeping stems with numerous short, erect branches having terminal sporophyte, a mitrate, plicate calyptra, and a propensity for a chestnut brown color are generic characteristics.
