Barbula indica (Hook.) Spreng.

  • 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.

  • Family

    Pottiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Barbula indica (Hook.) Spreng.

  • Description

    Species Description - Plants yellow-green to brown. Stems rarely branched, up to 12 mm high. Propagula often present, axillary, stalked, consisting of 3-50 cells, 80-300 µm long, green to brown, obovoid, clavate, spindle-shaped, ellipsoidal, or globose, raspberry-like or armed with 1-several short-pointed branches. Leaves crowded to ± distant, nearly uniform in size, when dry erect-incurved, often infolded above, occasionally catenulate, w h e n moist erect-spreading, straight or incurved, 0.5-1.8 mm long, ovate to lingulate, occasionally lanceolate or long-triangular, grooved at the costa, rounded to bluntly acute, apiculate by a single pellucid cell, rarely muticous, the base scarcely differentiated to much broadened and square, rectangular, or oval; margins plane to slightly recurved at midleaf, entire; costa percurrent or ending 1-4 cells below an apiculate apex or occasionally excurrent as a sharp mucro, covered dorsally by ± rectangular cells generally with both ends projecting as papillae (or occasionally with only 1 end projecting or smooth), with ventral stereids none or poorly represented; upper cells quadrate, 7-9(-10) µm wide, with 4—8 low, mostly hollow papillae per cell; basal cells 8-12 µm wide, 2-5:1, rectangular, those in 1-4 marginal rows shortrectangular. Perichaetial leaves 0.8-2.5(-3) mm long, ovate with cells completely elongate or lanceolate with elongate cells only in the lower third. Setae 7-13 mm long, red-brown; capsules 0.8-1.8 mm long, red-brown, ellipsoidal to ovoid, occasionally curved; operculum 0.8-1.7 mm long, short- to long-conic; peristome 0.7-1.7 mm long, the slender, densely spiculose divisions ± fused in pairs, only slightly to strongly twisted in 0.25-3 turns, with many articulations, red to orange. Spores (8—)9—12 µm, smooth to weakly papillose.

  • Discussion

    B. indica (Hook.) Spreng. ex Steud., Nomencl. Bot. 2: 72. 1824.

    Trichostomum indicum Schwaegr., Sp. Muse. Suppl. 1(1): 142. 1811, horn, illeg., non Willd. ex Schrad., 1803.

    Tortula indica Hook., Musci Exot. 2: 135. 1819.

    Barbula cruegeri Sond. ex C. Mull., Syn. Muse. Frond. 1: 618. 1849.

    B. rufipes Schimp. ex Besch., Mem. Soc. Sci. Nat. Cherbourg 16:180. 1872.

    B. hypselostegia Card., Rev. Bryol. 36: 84. 1909.

    B. muenchii Card., Rev. Bryol. 36: 84. 1909.

    B. pringlei Card., Rev. Bryol. 36: 85. 1909.

    Semibarbula rufipes (Schimp. ex Besch.) Hilp., Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 50(2): 622.1933.

    Streblotrichum hypselostegium (Card.) Hilp., Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 50(2): 635. 1933.

    S. pringlei (Card.) Hilp., Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 50(2): 635. 1933.

    The variation is treated more fully by Zander (1979a). The roughness at the back of the costa caused by papilla-like projections at both ends of cells distinguishes this from other Mexican species of Barbula. T w o intergrading extremes may be recognized.

  • Distribution

    On soil, limestone rock, or walls, on banks of roads or streams, sometimes on bark (perhaps at base of trees), at sea-level up to 3900 m alt.; Campeche, Chiapas, Colima, Durango, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Morelos, Oaxaca, Queretaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Veracruz.—Mexico; Guatemala and Belize; West Indies; northern South America; Canada (Alberta) and the United States (southeastern and southwestern states); India, Nepal, Hong Kong, China, and Japan; Philippine Isl

    United States of America North America| Indonesia Asia| Philippines Asia| China Asia| Japan Asia| Nepal Asia| India Asia| Canada North America| Peru South America| Ecuador South America| Colombia South America| Venezuela South America| Guyana South America| Suriname South America| French Guiana South America| Brazil South America| West Indies| Belize Central America| Guatemala Central America| Mexico North America|