Autoicous. Stems to 3 cm tall, branching from below. Leaves to 4 mm long and 1 mm wide, widest above the middle, spreading to erect-patent below; upper leaves imbricate, crowded, concave, with a short to long point; margins entire or bluntly toothed, crumpled and slow to wet when dry; costa ceasing below the apex to percurrent. Upper laminal cells lax, thin-walled, irregularly rectangular to quadrate-hexagonal, 30–50 µm wide in mid-leaf; 1 or 2 rows of marginal cells narrower; basal laminal cells rectangular.

Perigonia terminal, later overtopped by a female branch arising by innovation. Setae 15–40 mm long, arcuate when moist, flexuose, twisted when dry and old, strongly hygroscopic. Capsules c. 3 mm long and 1 mm wide, narrowly pyriform, gibbous, asymmetrical; mouth oblique, c. 0.8 mm wide, red-rimmed, striate when fresh, sulcate when dry and empty; operculum low, domed. Annulus large, revoluble. Peristome double and well-developed; exostome teeth orange, spirally curved, joined at the tips to an ephemeral central disc, papillose-striate below, with strong transverse bars projecting into the capsule cavity and protruding at the side of the teeth; endostome segments lanceolate, hyaline, papillose; processes similar to those of exostome. Spores yellow-brown, 12–20 µm, finely papillose but appearing smooth.

Funaria hygrometrica Hedw., Species Muscorum Frondosorum 172 (1801). Type: Germany; n.v.

Funaria calvescens Schwägr., Species Muscorum Frondosorum, Supplement 1(2): 77 (1816); Funaria hygrometrica var. calvescens (Schwägr.) Mont., Annales des Sciences Naturelles; Botanique, sér. 2, 12: 54 (1839). Type: Europe; n.v.

Funaria sphaerocarpa Müll.Hal., Botanische Zeitung (Berlin) 9: 546 (1851); F. hygrometrica var. sphaerocarpa (Müll.Hal.) Watts, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 30 (Suppl.): 117 (1906). Type: Green Cape, Twofold Bay, N.S.W., S.Mossman 831 (cited as Mossman 834 in protologue); holo: NY.

Funaria papillata Hampe, Linnaea 40: 302 (1876). Type: near Brisbane, Qld, Slater; BM-Hampe.

W.A.: Yalgarup National Park, I.G.Stone 6259.

N.T: 10 km N of Alice Springs, P.K.Latz 6355.

Qld: Upper Mowbray River, Sparvell 5158.

N.S.W.: Gudgenby.

N.T.: Burbidge 6771.

Vic.: Warrandyte, I.G.Stone 535.

Plants with curved or even coiled setae and ripe, pendulous capsules are especially distinctive. Funaria microstoma has similar capsules, but the mouth is less than half the diameter of the capsule.

Funaria hygrometrica var. calvescens differs only in having more erect setae, stems that are leafy above but becoming bare below and slightly narrower capsules. While some authors retain the var. calvescens as distinct, we consider that, pending further studies, there is insufficient basis for this separation.

D.G.Catcheside, Mosses of South Australia 229, fig. 128 (1980); D.Meagher & B.Fuhrer, A Field Guide to the Mosses and Allied Plants of Southern Australia 155 (2003); B.Malcolm, N.Malcolm, J.Shevock & D.Norris, California Mosses 48 (2009).

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