Mniaceae

from The Century Dictionary.

• A family of acrocarpous mosses of the order Bryales, typified by the genus Mnium, and distinguished from the Bryaccæ, to which it was formerly referred, by the club-shaped (instead of filiform) paraphyses of the male organs, and by the hexagonal (not rhombic) parenchymatous cells of the upper surface of the leaves. There are 4 genera and 79 species, of which latter 72 belong to the genus Mnium. They grow in moist, shady places, on the ground, on the bark of trees, or on rocks, and are found in nearly all parts of the world, but chiefly in temperate regions.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• proper noun A natural family of erect mosses with club-shaped paraphyses andgonal cells of the upper leaf surface; sometimes treated as a subfamily of Bryaceae.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun family of erect mosses with club-shaped paraphyses and the hexagonal cells of the upper leaf surface; sometimes treated as a subfamily of Bryaceae