Fabronia
Autoicous. Tufts or mats on soil, rock or tree bases. Stems creeping or weakly ascending, simple or sparsely and irregularly pinnate to bipinnate, with rhizoids mostly clustered near branch bases. Leaves ovate to linear-lanceolate, erect- to wide-spreading when moist, loosely appressed or erect-spreading and occasionally slightly secund when dry; apex acuminate, acute or rarely obtuse (not in Victoria), often piliferous; costa weak, extending 1/3–2/3 leaf length, sometimes appearing absent; margins entire to markedly ciliate, plane; laminal cells hexagonal to rhomboidal, smooth; alar cells well-differentiated, rhomboid, quadrate or oblate, extending highest along margin and occupying entire basal region including a short extent along costa. Capsule erect, straight, ovoid to pyriform. Calyptra cucullate, smooth, glabrous. Operculum umbonate or convex (not in Victoria). Peristome rarely absent (not in Victoria) or single and composed of 16 entire exostome teeth usually fused at base into pairs.
Widespread throughout temperate to tropical regions of the world and with an uncertain number species that has been estimated to be from around 11 (McIntosh 2014) to 90 (Gilmore 2012); one species in Victoria.
SpinningGilmore, S.R. (2012). Australian Mosses Online. 3. Fabroniaceae: Fabronia..
McIntosh, T.T. (2014). Fabroniaceae, in Flora of North America Editorial Committee (eds), Flora of North America, vol. 28: Bryophyta, part 2, pp. 476–478. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
