Ptychomniaceae
Dioicous or phyllodioicous with dwarfed male plants. Asexual reproduction by clavate or filiform gemmae in globose tufts at apices of stems and branches or in leaf axils. Tufts, cushions, or creeping or hanging turves on trees, logs or soil, rarely on rocks and semi-aquatic (not in Victoria). Secondary stems arising from primary stems; primary stems short and indistinct or long-creeping; secondary stems ascending or pendent, simple or sparingly branched, mostly lacking rhizoids except for fascicles at base, rarely scattered throughout stem (not in Victoria), with or without paraphyllia; pseudoparaphyllia present; central strand absent. Leaves arranged arrand the stem and facing all directions or complanate, monomorphic, symmetric or asymmetric, erect-spreading to squarrose when moist, usually scarcely-altered or occasionally becoming more erect when dry; apex rounded (not in Victoria), obtuse (not in Victoria), or acute to acuminate-piliferous, sometimes flexuose; costa absent or short and single or double, rarely single and extending to midleaf; margin entire or serrate near apex, plane, erect, or recurved near base, without a border; laminal cells linear, rectangular, elliptic, quadrate or rhomboid, pitted, smooth or abaxially prorulose (not in Victoria); alar cells quadrate to rectangular, strongly differentiated, orange or yellow, or weakly differentiated. Pleurocarpous. Setae smooth. Capsules erect to pendent, straight or slightly curved, conspicuously 8-ribbed or remaining smooth (not in Victoria), exserted or immersed (not in Victoria), operculate; annulus differentiated or not. Calyptra cucullate or mitrate (not in Victoria), smooth, glabrous. Operculum rostrate, sometimes longer than capsule. Peristome double, rarely single (not in Victoria); exostome of 16 entire teeth or absent (not in Victoria); endostome of 16 or 32 (not in Victoria) well-developed or rudimentary processes arising from a basal membrane or not, or completely absent (not in Victoria); cilia present or absent.
13 genera and 45 species shared between south-east Asia, Malesia, Marion and Crozet Islands, eastern Australia, South America, and New Zealand and the larger southern hemisphere Pacific Islands; four genera and five species in Victoria.
Some of the genera that traditionally formed a subfamily of the Pterobryaceae (i.e. Euptychium, Endotrichellopsis and Garovaglia) or were treated as the family Garovagliaceae have been transferred to the Ptychomniaceae, based on their derivation from within Ptychomniaceae according to a combined chloroplast and nuclear DNA phylogeny (Buck et al. 2005). The Ptychomniaceae encompasses a large amount of morphological and phylogenetic diversity, considering the small size of the family, and are a weakly coherent group morphologically. This is exemplified by most of the genera (eight) being monotypic (Bell et al. 2007). In general the Ptychomniaceae form tufts, most frequently on trees, are sparingly branched, and often have furrowed capsules and bear gemmae. A lack of morphological cohesion was exacerbated by inclusion of the former Garovagliaceae that are somewhat anomalous among Ptychomniaceae in having immersed capsules and often smooth capsules.
SpinningBell, N.E.; Pedersen, N.; Newton, A.E. (2007). Ombronesus stuvensis, a new genus and species of the Ptychomniaceae (Bryophyta) from south west Chile. Taxon 56: 887–896.
Buck, W.R.; Cox, C.J.; Shaw, A.J.; Goffinet, B. (2005). Ordinal relationships of pleurocarpous mosses, with special emphasis on the Hookeriales. Systematics and Biodiversity 2: 121–145.
