Dryptodon
Dioicous. Asexual reproduction by multicellular gemmae on leaf surface or leaf axils. Tufts, cushions or mats on rocks or rarely tree bases. Stem repeatedly dichotomous, with rhizoids restricted to base; central strand present or absent. Leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, falcate-secund (not in Victoria) or erect- to wide-spreading or squarrose when moist, erect and straight or flexuose to contorted when dry; apex acute or acuminate, with or without a hyaline hairpoint; hairpoint smooth or denticulate; costa percurrent to excurrent; margins entire, plane or recurved at base or midleaf, rarely incurved toward apex (not in Victoria), rarely with a border of hyaline cells at base (not in Victoria); laminal cells quadrate to rectangular, sometimes linear near costa at base (not in Victoria), smooth, with sinuose or straight walls, unistratose or 2-stratose. Acrocarpous. Seta straight or curved, smooth. Capsule erect to pendent, symmetric, ovoid, ellipsoid, or globose, exserted, striate when dry, with an annulus. Calyptra mitrate, smooth. Operculum rostrate. Peristome of 16 teeth entire or split.
Cosmopolitan, with around 20 species; three species in Victoria.
Dryptodon is distinguished from the very similar Grimmia by the production of gemmae on leaf surfaces of in leaf axils (Streiff 2006; Hernández-Maqueda 2007; Hernández-Maqueda et al. 2008a). Dryptodon forms a group in chloroplast phylogenies that is either most closely related to Racomitrium or to a group comprising Grimmia and Schistidium, which supports its separation from Grimmia, in which it has been traditionally placed (Hernández-Maqueda 2007; Hernández-Maqueda et al. 2008a, 2008b).
Hernández-Maqueda, R. (2007). Incongruence entre señal morfológica y molecular: una nueva propuesta sistemática para el complejo Grimmiaceae-Ptychomitriaceae (Bryophyta). PhD Thesis, Universidad Autonomoa de Madrid.
Hernández-Maqueda, R.; Quandt, D.; Muñoz, J. (2008b). Testing reticulation and adaptive convergence in the Grimmiaceae (Bryophyta). Taxon 57: 500–510.
Hernández-Maqueda, R.; Quandt, D.; Werner, O.; Muñoz, J. (2008a). Phylogeny and classification of the Grimmiaceae/Ptychomitriaceae complex (Bryophyta) inferred from cpDNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 46: 863–877.
Streiff, A. (2006). Phylogenetic study of Grimmia (Grimmiaceae) based on plastid DNA sequences (trnL-trnF and rps4) and on morphological characters. *The Bryologist * 109: 224–235.