Cryphaea filiformis (Hedw.) Brid.

  • Authority

    Buck, William R. 1998. Pleurocarpous mosses of the West Indies. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 82: 1-400.

  • Family

    Cryphaeaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Cryphaea filiformis (Hedw.) Brid.

  • Description

    Species Description - Plants slender, secondary stems to ca. 6 cm long, but often only ca. 3 cm long, in mostly bright- to dark-green, thin but sometimes extensive, epiphytic colonies. Primary stems creeping, very slender, inconspicuous, with reduced, scale-like leaves, turning ca. 90° and becoming the secondary stem, the creeping stem continuing by a bud from near the base of the secondary stem, secondary stems usually erect, simple or sparingly branched, not complanate-foliate; in cross-section with 2-4 rows of small thick-walled cells surrounding abruptly larger thick-walled cells, central strand none; paraphyllia none; pseudoparaphyllia foliose; axillary hairs with 1-2 short brown basal cells and 3-6(-8) short to elongate hyaline distal cells. Secondary stem and branch leaves similar, appressed when dry, rapidly spreading to wide-spreading when moist, ovate-lanceolate to ovate, 0.85-1.6 mm long, gradually short-acuminate, somewhat concave, shortly but broadly decurrent; margins subentire to serrulate above, entire below, plane throughout or erect below; costa single, ending 1/2-3/4 the leaf length, covered in apical portion with laminal cells and slightly crested at back; cells oval, 1-3:1, smooth to distinctly prorulose at upper ends (especially toward leaf apex), firm-walled, longer and somewhat sigmoid in the acumen, becoming rectangular and sometimes porose toward the slightly yellowed or concolorous insertion; alar cells similar to upper cells, gradually differentiated, in more obvious rows and somewhat more angular, sometimes short-rectangular in the decurrencies. Asexual propagula none. Autoicous. Perichaetia conspicuous; leaves erect with erect to somewhat flexuose apices, oblong-obovate, abruptly awned, the lamina 1.1-1.7 mm long, the awn ca. 0.6 mm long and spinose throughout from projecting upper ends of cells, on dissection the lamina almost always folded in half lengthwise; margins subentire to serrulate, plane throughout or recurved at base of awn; costa often lacking or only at extreme apex, sometimes extending to base; cells in upper 1/3-1/2 of lamina like those of vegetative leaves, in lower 1/2-2/3 linear to linear-flexuose, smooth or prorulose at upper ends, firm-walled. Setae very short, ca. 3/4 of its length embedded in vaginula, smooth, ca. 0.2 mm long; capsules immersed, erect and symmetric, broadly ovoid-cylindric, ca. 0.8-1.2 mm long, broadest just below midurn; exothecial cells short-rectangular, thin-walled, becoming subquadrate to oblate at the mouth; annulus revoluble, of 2-3(-4) rows of small, very thick-walled cells; operculum conic, short-rostrate, ca. 0.4 mm long; exostome teeth linear-triangular, papillose-spiculose throughout, the papillae more concentrated near the cell walls, not trabeculate at back; endostome with a very low or absent basal membrane, segments papillose-spiculose throughout, linear, not or scarcely keeled, not perforate, 3/4 to almost as long as the teeth, cilia none. Spores ± spherical, finely papillose, 17-26 µm diam. Calyptrae conic-mitrate, naked, roughened by projecting upper ends of cells, the residual archegonial neck and base sometimes to 1/4 the length of the calyptra.

  • Discussion

    1. Cryphaea filiformis (Hedw.) Brid., Muscol. Recent. Suppl. 4: 139. 1819; Neckera filiformis Hedw., Sp. Musc. Frond. 202. 1801; Pilotrichum filiforme (Hedw.) R Beauv., Prodr. Aethéogam. 83. 1805; Daltonia filiformis (Hedw.) Arn., Mém. Soc. Hist. Nat. Paris 2: 302. 1826. Plate 64, figures 1-8 Cryphaea leiophylla Bruch & Schimp. in Bruch, Schimp. & W. Gümbel, Bryol. Eur. 5(fasc. 44-45, Monogr. 5): 35. 1850; Cryphaea leptophylla Schimp. ex Besch., Mém. Soc. Sci. Nat. Cherbourg 16: 214. 1872, nom. illeg. Cryphaea funalis Müll. Hal., Hedwigia 37: 241. 1898. Discussion. Cryphaea filiformis is easily distinguished from the other two West Indian Cryphaeci species by the shorter costa and less toothed leaf margins. However, sterile material is very difficult to separate from Schoenobryum concavifolium. Cryphaeci filiformis tends to have plane to erect leaf margins, whereas S. concavifolium has mostly recurved margins. In particularly troublesome plants, the two can be separated by the broad, foliose pseudoparaphyllia of C. filiformis and the filamentous to narrowly foliose ones in S. concavifolium. Manuel (1981: 124, 125) cited a single Lesser Antillean collection, without specific locality and with an illegible collector’s name. Without better data, I am tentatively excluding the species from the Lesser Antilles. Manuel, in the same article, recognized C. orizabae Schimp. ex Besch. The species is only marginally distinct from C. filiformis by the somewhat tapered leaf apex, and may be better placed in synonymy with it.

  • Distribution

    Range. Florida (Collier Co.), Mexico, Guatemala, reported from northern South America but no material seen; Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico; growing on trunks and branches of shrubs and trees, often in the canopy, in open, humid vegetation, at (80-) 500-1500 m.

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