BFNA Title: Bryocrumia
Author: W. R. Buck
Date: February 17, 2009
Edit Level: R
Version: 1

Bryophyte Flora of North America, Provisional Publication
Missouri Botanical Garden
BFNA Web site: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/BFNA/bfnamenu.htm

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HYPNACEAE - BRYOCRUMIA

XX. bryocrumia L. E. Anderson, Phytologia 45: 65. 1980

William R. Buck

Plants small, in thin, soft, yellow-green to green mats. Stems creeping, prostrate, freely but irregularly branched, the branches mostly simple, short, sometimes tapered to the apex, somewhat remotely foliate; in cross-section without a hyalodermis, with small thick-walled cells surrounding larger thinner-walled cells, central strand absent; pseudoparaphyllia broadly foliose; axillary hairs with 1 short brown basal cell and 3 ± elongate hyaline brown distal cells. Leaves of stems and branches similar, erect- to wide-spreading, moderately complanate, soft, elliptic to oblong-ovate, bluntly obtuse to broadly acute, not or scarcely decurrent; margins serrate distally, serrulate to subentire proximally, plane distally, broadly incurved on 1 side at base; costa short and double or absent; cells oblong-rhomboidal, appearing smooth but actually low-prorulose, often firm-walled, shorter at the apex, scarcely differentiated toward the insertion; alar cells few in extreme angles. Specialilzed asexual reproduction none. Sporophytes unknown.

Species 1 (1 in the flora): North America, Africa, Asia.

Bryocrumia is defined by small, prostrate, soft plants with obtuse, oblong-ovate leaves with cells that are prorulose at one or both ends. The laminal cells are relatively short and alar cells are few in the extreme angles. Although reported as smooth by L. E. Anderson (1980), the laminal cells of Glossadelphus andersonii were originally described as prorulose and, indeed, on close examination one can see projecting cell ends when leaves are viewed in profile.

SELECTED REFERENCES Anderson, L. E. 1980. Bryocrumia, a new genus of Hypnaceae (Musci). Phytologia 45: 63--66. Buck, W. R. 1987. Notes on Asian Hypnaceae and associated taxa. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 519--527. O’Shea, B. J. and W. R. Buck. 2001. Bryophytes of Uganda. 5. Bryocrumia L. E. Anderson (Hypnaceae), a monotypic moss genus new to Africa. Trop. Bryol. 20: 103--107.

1. Bryocrumia vivicolor (Brotherus & Dixon) W. R. Buck, Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 45: 522. 1987 F

Taxithelium vivicolor Brotherus & Dixon in Dixon, Rec. Bot. Surv. India 6(3): 86. 1914; Glossadelphus vivicolor (Brotherus & Dixon) Brotherus; G. andersonii E. B. Bartram; Taxiphyllum andersonii (E. B. Bartram) H. A. Crum; Bryocrumia andersonii (E. B. Bartram) L. E. Anderson

Plants in soft, somewhat shiny, thin mats. Stems to ca. 1 cm long; in cross-section with 2--3 rows of small thick-walled cells surrounding larger thinner-walled cells. Leaves ovate, 0.7--0.8 mm, broadly acute to obtuse; cells 10--25 /x 5 /um, low-prorulose at distal cell ends abaxially (best viewed in profile); alar cells short-rectangular in 2--5 rows in the extreme basal angles.

Moist, shaded rocks in cool ravines; 400--500 m; N.C., S.C.; Africa (Zaire, Uganda, Kenya); Asia (India, Sri Lanka, China).

The slender plant habit, obtuse leaf apices, and wet rock substrate, make Bryocrumia vivicolor immediately distinctive.