Fissidens asplenioides Hedw.
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Authority
Sharp, Aaron J., et al. 1994. The Moss Flora of Mexico. Part One: Sphagnales to Bryales. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 69 (1): 1-452.
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Family
Fissidentaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Plants erect, becoming decumbent with age and length, often forming loose mats, simple to sparingly branched, up to 4.5 cm high. Leaves generally incurved at the tips even when moist, lanceolate to linear-lingulate, up to ca. 4 mm long, but usually 2.5-3(-4) mm long, obtuse to acute, sometimes obtusely short-acuminate; margins unbordered, crenulate, sometimes ± unevenly so at the apex; costa strong but ending several cells below the apex, generally conspicuously bent at the end of the vaginant laminae; dorsal lamina ending at or somewhat above the leaf insertion; vaginant laminae 1/2 - 3/4 the leaf length, unequal, the smaller of each pair rounded above and attached only along the costa or narrowed to it; cells irregularly hexagonal, 7.5-12 µm, somewhat bulging owing to convex-thickened outer walls, becoming somewhat larger and ± oblong to long-hexagonal in the lower half of the vaginant laminae; marginal cells of vaginant laminae conspicuously narrowed, ± elongate, with long axes oriented ± obliquely in upper parts and ± vertically below. Dioicous. Setae 1 (-2), terminal (but archegonia often in axils of upper leaves), up to ca. 6 mm long; capsules up to ca. 1.8 mm long; opercula long-rostrate, curved; peristome teeth deeply divided, vertically papillose-striolate below, verrucose-papillose above. Spores 7.5-12 µm, finely papillose. Calyptrae cucullate, smooth, covering only the beak of the operculum.
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Discussion
Fig. 21
F. asplenioides Hedw., Sp. Muse. 156. 1801.
F. UngulatusC. Mull., Bull. Herb. Boissier 5: 172. 1897.
When dry the leaves curl rather tightly inward from the tips, and it is very difficult to get them to lie flat when prepared for examination. This, in addition to the rather large size of the plants, thickened outer walls of leaf cells, and vaginant laminae rounded above and free, with differentiated cells at their margins give distinction to this species.
For a more detailed discussion of F. asplenioides and comparison with F. polypodioides, see Crum and Anderson (1965a).
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Distribution
On moist shaded banks and rocks, often along streams at elevations of 1000-3000 m; Baja California, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Distrito Federal, Durango, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico, Michoacan, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tamaulipas, Veracruz.—More or less throughout tropical America, north to North Carolina and Tennessee in the southeastern United States; essentially pantropical.