Encalypta Hedw., Sp. Musc. Frond. 1801.
Plants small to moderately large, yellowish green to brownish green, in dense tufts. Stems erect, forked; central strand not well developed. Leaves lingulate, oblong-ovate to elliptic, concave, rounded-obtuse, acute or acuminate above, sometimes awned; margins plane or erect, often crenulate-papillose above, sometimes incurved near the apex; costa single, strong, ending below the apex to percurrent; upper leaf cells rounded to nearly quadrate, obscure with dense forked papillae on both surfaces, thick-walled; basal cells along the costa oblong, smooth, lax, with thin longitudinal walls, thicker, reddish transverse walls; basal marginal cells differentiated, pale, linear, smooth in several rows. Autoicous. Setae erect, elongate, often twisted above when dry; capsules cylindric, erect, symmetric, smooth or furrowed; annuli present; opercula with a straight long-rostrate beak; peristome variable, absent, single or double, lanceolate to filiform, entire or divided, papillose. Calyptrae large, conic-cylindric, covering the whole capsules, long-rostrate, smooth or papillose above, fringed or lobed at the base. Spores spherical, small to large, with proximal and distal surfaces often differentiated.
The genus Encalypta is characterized by a prominent and usually persistent, campanulate, non-plicate calyptra covering the whole capsule, by quadrate upper leaf cells that are obscure by dense papillae, by elongate basal leaf cells that are often reddish with markedly thickened transverse walls, by differentiated spores with proximal and distal surfaces, and by a variable peristome that can be single, double or lacking. The species of Encalypta are predominantly distributed in the Northern Hemisphere where they are characteristic components of northern and montane vegetation. In a world-wide revision of the Encalyptaceae, Horton (1982, 1983) accepted 19 species and 4 subspecies in Encalypta, including E. sibirica (Weinm.) Warnstorf reported new to China. Six species were recognized by T. Cao, Horton & C. Gao (1992) and seven species by T. Cao & C. Gao (1996). Redfearn et al. (1996) listed eleven species of Encalypta from China. Encalypta tianschanica from Xinjiang and E. sinica from Hebei were recently published as new species by J.-C. Zhao, S. He and R.-L. Hu (1997) and J.-C. Zhao, M. Li and J.-B. Li (1999), respectively. Encalypta procera Bruch reported from Yunnan (M.-K. Cui 1986) was based on a misidentification of Tortula muralis Hedw. var. aestiva Brid. Eight species are treated in this study.