Brachymenium niveum Besch.
-
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
Bryaceae
-
Scientific Name
-
Description
Species Description - Plants ± silvery, small to medium-sized, in very dense tufts, matted with radicles below. Stems usually branched by subfloral innovations. Leaves ± contorted and appressed when dry, erect-spreading when moist, oblong- to ovate-lanceolate with a slender, hyaline acumen; margins plane, sharply serrulate near the apex, indistinctly bordered by much longer cells in 2-3 rows; costa strong, very long-excurrent (but ending a little below the apex in lower leaves), often with a toothed (or rarely forked) hyaline tip; median cells rhomboid-hexagonal, shorter toward the apex and much longer, narrower, thicker-walled, and more pointed in the hyaline acumen, shorter, broader and nearly quadrate at base. Dioicous. Perichaetial leaves triangular-lanceolate. Setae erect, slender, up to 2 cm long; capsules oblong with an indistinct, short neck; operculum small, nearly hemispheric, non-apiculate; otherwise as in B. systylium.
-
Discussion
Fig. 375a-d
B. niveum Besch., J. Bot. (Morot) 15: 383. 1901.
This species is very similar to B. pulchrum Hook., an Old World moss, but the leaves are much narrower and less concave, with a far less developed hyaline acumen and less differentiated border.
-
Distribution
On bark oftrees; Chihuahua, Nayarit, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosi.—Endemic
Mexico North America|