Lepyrodon Hampe

Plants forming cushions usually on bark or rock. Stems creeping and much branched, forming a densely intertwined mat and giving rise to numerous erect branches. Microphyllous secondary branches frequently present. Leaves lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate, or broadly oblong, often plicate, unbordered, serrulate above, not decurrent, usually abruptly tapered to a fine acumen or pilifer that is uniseriate apically; mid laminal cells vermicular, smooth, firm-walled, variably porose; cells at insertion shorter and wider; alar cells not or poorly differentiated. Costa single, often branched, weak and usually less than ½ the leaf length. Axillary hairs reportedly present.

Dioicous, sometimes with dwarfed ♂ plants. Capsules erect, symmetric, smooth and weakly constricted below the mouth when dry; exothecial cells irregular in outline, l:w mostly less than 2:1, firm-walled; stomata restricted to capsule base; annulus persistent, composed of a single row of cells. Peristome single or double; exostome teeth absent or rudimentary; endostome hyaline, with a low basal membrane and narrowly perforate segments, linear or irregular in outline, lacking nodules and appendiculae; cilia usually absent but rarely rudimentary. Operculum obliquely rostrate from a high conic base. Calyptra cucullate, smooth. Spores spherical, smooth or nearly so.

A genus of c. seven species distributed almost exclusively in tropical and temperate South America and Australasia; a single species extends northward into Mexico and the Caribbean islands. The genus was monographed by Allen (1999), but not all of his taxonomic decisions are accepted here.