Catagoniaceae is a small family of mosses in the order

Hypnales Hypnales is the botanical name of an order of Bryophyta or leafy mosses. This group is sometimes called feather mosses, referring to their freely branched stems. The order includes more than 40 families and more than 4,000 species, making them ...

, distinguished by its hypnoid peristome characterized by well-developed, ornamented exostomial teeth and leaves with double costae. Species typically grow in compact tufts or dense mats on various substrates, including tree trunks (corticicolous), rocks (rupicolous), and soil (terricolous). The family has a disjunct distribution, primarily found in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

(especially Brazil's Atlantic Forest and Amazon Rainforest) and

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

. In Brazil, these mosses inhabit diverse vegetation types such as ombrophilous forests and high-altitude environments.

Morphology

Catagoniaceae species are relatively small, forming dense green mats. They feature: * Ascending stems (caulidia) with irregular or simple branching * Cylindrical or flattened shoots * Rhizoids with projections at the stem base * Clustered oblong-ovate to elliptic leaves with abruptly apiculate tips * Dioicous sexuality * A double-layered peristome (exostome and endostome)

Distribution

Phytogeographic Domains

Amazon Rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

(Brazilian Norte region) * Atlantic Forest (Brazilian Nordeste, Sudeste, and Sul regions)

Geographic Range

In Brazil, recorded in: * Norte: Amazonas, Pará * Nordeste: Alagoas * Sudeste: Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo * Sul: Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina

Genera and Species

The family is monogeneric, containing only '' Catagonium'' with nine recognized species: * ''Catagonium brevicaudatum'' * ''Catagonium emarginatum'' S.H.Lin * ''Catagonium nitens'' (Brid.) Cardot * ''Catagonium nitidum'' (Hook.f. & Wilson) Broth. * ''Catagonium politum'' (Hook.f. & Wilson) Dusén ex Broth. * ''Catagonium serrulatum'' (Cardot) Broth. * ''Catagonium mucronatum'' (A.Jaeger) Broth. * ''Catagonium gracile'' (Besch.) Broth. * ''Catagonium complanatum'' (Cardot & Broth.) Broth.

Phylogeny

Catagoniaceae belongs to the

order, a monophyletic group of pleurocarpous mosses. Molecular studies suggest close relationships with

Brachytheciaceae Brachytheciaceae is a family of mosses from the order Hypnales. The family includes over 40 genera and 250 species. Description The family consists of pleurocarpous mosses with very diverse appearances. They are irregular or pinnately branche ...

and

Hypnaceae Hypnaceae is a large family of moss with broad worldwide occurrence in the class Bryopsida, subclass Bryidae and order Hypnales. Genera include ''Hypnum'', ''Phyllodon (plant), Phyllodon'', and ''Taxiphyllum''. Ecology Some of the family species ...

, though robust phylogenetic data remain limited. The family was established to accommodate ''Catagonium'', previously classified in other Hypnalean families.

References

Moss families Monogeneric plant families Flora of Southern America Flora of Brazil Flora of the Atlantic Forest Amazon rainforest {{hypnales-stub