Seligeria Bruch & Schimp.

Elements in the following description are taken from Vitt (1976).

Plants minute, gregarious, light to dark green, closely adherent to calcareous rock. Stems very short, unbranched or forked, cross-section not observed. Leaves small below, larger and more crowded above, often stiff when dry, spreading, erect spreading, or weakly secund when moist, usually subulate from a ± ovate to lanceolate base, sometimes linear, the upper portion usually filled by the costa, entire or ± denticulate, sheathing or not at base; laminal cells quadrate or short-rectangular, smooth; alar cells not differentiated. Costa single, usually becoming broader above and mostly filling the subula.

Autoicous. Perichaetial leaves either not differentiated or with a more strongly defined base. Setae slender or stout, straight, flexuose, or cygneous when moist, to c. 3 mm; capsules erect and symmetric, urceolate or pyriform, emergent or exserted, with a short or elongate columella; exothecial cells variable in shape; stomata few, restricted to base, superficial; annulus mostly not differentiated; operculum conic-rostrate, often systylious. Peristome single, with 16 well-developed, triangular, red-brown teeth, sometimes reduced or absent, the outer surface smooth except for transverse articulations, lacking a median zig zag line; preperistome absent. Calyptra cucullate and smooth. Spores c. 8–14 µm in N.Z. species, smooth or finely papillose, green.

A genus of c. 19 species, mostly distributed in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Most species, including the N.Z. ones, are minute plants which grow closely affixed to weathered calcareous or cation-rich rock, usually in sheltered microhabitats. New Zealand and Tasmania are the only regions in the southern hemisphere where the genus is recorded.

A revision of the North American species was undertaken by Vitt (1976), who treated 13 species for that continent and who proposed the recognition of five subgenera. Vitt & Bartlett (1983) provided a treatment of the two N.Z. species and the following draws considerably from that publication. Lönnell (2006) provided a beautifully illustrated account of 14 species occurring in Fennoscandia. In Europe and Britain members of Seligeria are sometimes termed "rock-bristles".