Rhodobryum
Dioicous. Asexual propagules absent. Mats or turves on soil. Primary stem creeping and subterranean, with erect secondary stems remaining simple or sometimes branching by innovation, with sparse to frequent rhizoids arising from axils; central strand present. Leaves ovate, obovate or spathulate, crowded and comose at apex, erect-spreading when moist, contorted when dry; apex acute or cuspidate, often with a hairpoint; costa percurrent to excurrent; margin serrate in apical half, revolute, usually with a border of more elongated cells; laminal cells rhombic to hexagonal, becoming more elongate and rectangular toward base, smooth; alar cells not differentiated. Capsule inclined (not in Victoria) to pendent, straight or curved, oblong to cylindric, with a revoluble annulus. Calyptra cucullate, smooth, glabrous. Operculum conic. Peristome double; endostome similar height as exostome (not in Victoria) or slightly shorter, with a high basal membrane; cilia present.
Around 25 species in temperate to tropical regions (Spence 2014); one species in Victoria.
Rhodobryum is similar to Rosulabryum in that the stem leaves are crowded into a distinct rosette near the stem apex, the laminal cells are rhombic to hexagonal and transition to becoming more elongate and rectangular near the base and often more than one sporophyte is produced from a single perichaetium. Rhodobryum differs from Rosulabryum by its creeping underground primary stem and Rosulabryum often produce asexual propagules that are never present in Rhodobryum.
Spence, J.R. (2014). Rhodobryum, in Flora of North America Editorial Committee (eds), Flora of North America, vol. 28: Bryophyta, part 2, pp. 176–177. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York.
