From the Greek entos (within) and odon (a tooth), in reference to the position of the peristome teeth within the capsule.

Autoicous, rarely paroicous or polygamous (non-Australian species). Plants medium-sized, gregarious, yellowish, brownish or bright green. Stems reddish brown, rarely pale, usually branched once by subperigonial innovation, rarely branched by forking or repeated innovation, more than 2 mm long; in cross-section with a central strand, a parencyhmatous medulla, a cortex of 1–3 layers of thick-walled cells, and a ±well developed hyalodermis, beset with smooth rhizoids. Leaves larger and more crowded near stem apices, erect-spreading, rarely erect and imbricate, concave or plane, oblong-obovate, spathulate or ovate-lanceolate; apex acuminate, acute or obtuse, often cuspidate; costa variable; margin serrate by projecting cells or entire. Upper laminal cells thin-walled, oblong-hexagonal or oblong, longer and laxer below; a few cells often somewhat inflated at the alar angles; marginal cells differentiated or not, often projecting. Axillary filaments present.

Perigonia usually single, terminating a shoot from which the perichaetial shoot arises by innovation. Calyptra cucullate, rostrate or mitrate. Seta straight, weakly hygroscopic, smooth in Australian species. Capsules erect or inclined, usually symmetrical, obovoid, broadly pyriform to narrowly cylindrical-pyriform, rarely ovoid, reddish brown at maturity, usually wrinkled at the neck and constricted below the mouth when dry, with a neck c. 1/4–1/2 the length of the capsule; mouth 2/3 to ±equal the diam. of the capsule, rarely smaller, transverse or oblique; exothecial cells usually oblong to elongate, 2–8:1, with thick cuneate or rarely non-cuneate walls, not forming vertical bands, c. 6–12 rows oblate at the mouth; operculum plano-convex or conical; annulus absent or rudimentary; stomata immersed or rarely superficial. Peristome double, single or absent, persistent or fugacious; exostome teeth variably developed, straight or sigmoid, free at apices, not or weakly appendiculate, papillose-striolate to strongly striate; endostome segments variably developed, papillose, coherent at the base. Spores subreniform, variably ornamented.

This is a cosmopolitan genus of c. 60–70 species.

Entosthodon Schwägr., Sp. Musc. Frond. Suppl. 2(1): 44 (1823). Type: E. templetonii (Sm.) Schwägr.

The generic concept presented here includes subgenus Plagiodus which, according to Brotherus (1924), formed part of Funaria. Those species referred to subg. Plagiodus lack the lattice disc joining their peristome teeth apices, a revoluble annulus, and the distinctive ranks of thick- and thin-walled exothecial cells which are features of Funaria sens. str. In global terms, the boundary between subg. Plagiodus and Entosthodon sens. str. is obscure, but it poses few problems in an Australian context. Detailed cladistic analysis may necessitate the recognition of subg. Plagiodus at the generic level.

Brotherus, V.F. (1924), Funariaceae, in H.G.A.Engler & K.A.E.Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam., 2nd edn, 10: 320–332.

Catcheside, D.G. (1980), Mosses of South Australia 218–239.

Fife, A.J. (1986), Taxonomic and nomenclatural observations on the Funariaceae. 4. A review of Entosthodon laxus with incidental notes on E. obtusifolius, Bryologist 89: 302–309.

Fife, A.J. (1987), Taxonomic and nomenclatural observations on the Funariaceae. 5. A revision of the Andean species of Entosthodon, Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 301–325 (1987).

Fife, A.J. (1996), Lectotypification of Weissia radians Hedw., a neglected name for a widespread Australasian moss species, with notes on the status of Funaria glabra Tayl. and the typification of some other Hedwigian names, J. Bryol. 19: 39–48.

 Fife, A.J. & Seppelt, R.D. (2001), A revision of the family Funariaceae (Musci) in Australia, Hikobia 13: 473–490.

Magill, R.E. (1987), Flora of Southern Africa. Bryophyta. Part 1 Mosses. Fascicle 2. Gigaspermaceae–Bartramiaceae.

Sainsbury, G.O.K. (1955), A handbook of the New Zealand Mosses, Bull. Roy. Soc. New Zealand 5: 1–490.

Scott, G.A.M. & Stone, I.G. (1976), The Mosses of Southern Australia. Academic Press, London.

Seppelt, R.D. (2004), The Moss Flora of Macquarie Island. Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston.

Sim, T.R. (1926), The bryophytes of South Africa, Trans. Roy. Soc. South Africa 15: 1–475.

A.J.Fife & R.D.Seppelt (2012), Australian Mosses Online 67. Funariaceae. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. Version 2 October 2012.