Bazzania tayloriana (Mitt.) Kuntze
Mastigobryum taylorianum Mitt. in Hook.f., Bot. Antarc. Voy. 2: 147. pl. 100, f. 5. 1854. Bazzania tayloriana (Mitt.) Kuntze, Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 832. 1891.
Type: New Zealand, North Is., Tehawera, Colenso.
Mastigobryum delicatulum Colenso, Trans. & Proc. New Zealand Inst. 18: 246. 1886.
Type: New Zealand, Waipawa Co., 1885, Colenso 1400 (BM!, G!).
Mastigobryum obscurum Colenso, Trans. & Proc. New Zealand Inst. 19: 292. 1887 (1886).
Type: New Zealand, Wairoa Co., hill country between Mohaka and Lake Waikara, 1886, Hamilton.
Mastigobryum obtusistipulum Colenso, Trans. & Proc. New Zealand Inst. 19: 294. 1887 (1886).
Type: New Zealand, Waipawa Co., near Norsewood, 1886, Colenso 1407 (BM!, G!).
[Plate 8A; Fig. 103; Fig. 104: 1, 2, oil-bodies, p. 452]
Plants small, fragile, easily broken when dry, prostrate, glaucous green to brownish with age, the leaves dull, milky and opaque when moist, subnitid when dry; shoots to 1.8–2 mm wide. Branching sparsely and pseudo-dichotomously furcate, the branches of Frullania type, widely spreading; branch half-leaf ± symmetric, ovate, undivided, nonvittate, tapering to a sharp apex (rarely bidentate); first branch underleaf 3-lobed, inserted on ventral-lateral side of juncture of main axis and branch, free from underleaf of main axis. Ventral-intercalary leafy branches often produced, the branching in some populations almost exclusively intercalary; stoloniform branches sporadically present, rarely reverting to leafy branches. Stems slender, the cortical cells firm, with moderately thickened walls, with a fine granular coating like that of the leaves. Leaves alternate, horizontal, contiguous to weakly imbricate, much of stem exposed in dorsal aspect, widely spreading (ca. 90°), plane to weakly convex; leaves vittate, (295)325–490 µm wide × (565)630–925 µm long, strongly incubous, asymmetrically ovate, tapering to a somewhat obliquely truncate apex; apex ± symmetrically tridentate, the teeth ± inflexed, acute to acuminate (rarely blunt), 5–8 cells wide at base, terminating in a uniseriate row of 2–3 cells, the apex otherwise entire; dorsal margin strongly ampliate, distinctly arched, but only weakly auriculate, extending to middle of stem, entire, not decurrent; ventral margin nearly straight, entire, short-decurrent. Vittae of leaves distinct but obscured by the dense granular coating of the leaf, running parallel to and 2–3 cells within the ventral margin at midpoint of leaf, the vitta of 4(6) cell rows; cells of vitta 18–27 µm wide × (20)25–37 µm long, with large, bulging trigones; cells outside the vitta swollen, much smaller, 12–19 µm wide and long, without or with indistinct trigones; surface glaucous and densely and finely punctate-granular. Oil-bodies occupying a conspicuous part of the cell lumen, hazy and opaque, markedly cloud-like, 3–5(6) per vitta cell, 8–9 × 18–19 µm, some 7.5 × 14 µm, irregularly bulging and turgid in appearance, potato- to sausage-shaped, often constricted at the septa, the septa complete but at times appearing incomplete, the oil-bodies homogeneous, many completely aseptate but often others with several segments per oil-body, each oil-body, when segmented, consisting of 2–3(4) large, bulging spheres; oil-bodies in non-vitta cells 2(3) per cell, 5 × 7.5–11 µm; oil-bodies of marginal cells sometimes spherical and 4.5 µm in diam. Underleaves inconspicuous, membranous and colorless throughout, often appearing hyaline, narrowly connate to leaf on one side (rarely free), appressed to the stem, distant, plane, subquadrate, ± equally 4-lobed to ca. 0.2–0.3 or the underleaves bisbifid (the median sinus deeper) or 2(3)-lobed, the lobes ± united in pairs; lobes spatulate, 4–5 cells wide at base, entire to indistinctly serrulate, the apex bluntly rounded, terminating in 2–4 laterally juxtaposed cells (or rarely in a uniseriate row of 2–3 cells), the lobe summit often with a slime papilla; cells of lobes and disc moderately thick-walled, quadrate to ± elongate; disc margins entire; surface finely papillose.
Androecia on inconspicuous, short, determinate, tightly spicate, ventral-intercalary branches from main shoot; bracts ventricose-cucullate, bidentate to short-bilobed, the lobes acute, apiculate; dorsal margin of disc dilated to form a rather well-defined lobule, the lobule margin crenulate and with a few slime papillae, the distal sector with an apical tooth or, when particularly defined, acute and tapering to a sharp summit; antheridia 1 per bract, the stalk biseriate. Gynoecia not seen.
Distribution and Ecology : New Zealand: Stewart Island (100–200 m), South Island (0–ca. 500 m), North Island (100–500[760] m), Chatham Islands (160 m). Known from Fiordland, Westland (Aspiring Natl. Park), Western Nelson, Southern North Island (Tararua Ra.), Volcanic Plateau, Taranaki, Gisborne (Urewera), Auckland (including Great Barrier and Little Barrier islands) and Northland EPs. Common in the North Island, particularly in the upper half of the island; much less common in the South Island. Fulford (1946, 1963b) records the species for Colombia; the Colombia specimens require confirmation. Also reported from Samoa (Miller et al., 1983); this record also requires confirmation.
A species of damp, rich forests (in the North Island Agathis australis and Beilschmiedia tawa – Knightia excelsa forests; in the South and Stewart islands Nothofagus, Dacrydium cupressinum – Prumnopitys taxifolia forests and Metrosideros umbellata – Weinmannia racemosa forests) where it is found on tree-fern trunks (caudices of Cyathea dealbata and C. smithii) and caudex bases and old stumps of Dicksonia squarrosa, as well as on rotted logs and on humus between and on tree roots at lower to middle elevations (to 500 m on both South and North islands). On Stewart Island (Port Pegasus, vicinity of Tin Ra. Track, ca. 200 m) over a thick layer of soil on a large rocky outcrop in podocarp–hardwood forest including Dacrydium cupressinum and Weinmannia racemosa. On Chatham Island on a rotten log of Dracophyllum arboreum, with Lepidozia bisbifida and Kurzia hippuroides.
The species is particularly tolerant of deeply shaded niches, such as on humus inside hollow rotting tree stumps or on tree buttresses. In such sites it may be easily identified in the field by the dark bluish green hue. The species often grows shingled or in loosely interwoven pure mats.
Almost invariably accompanied by Leucobryum candidum. Other accompanying species are Bazzania adnexa, B. hochstetteri, B. nitida, Calomnion complanatum (when on Cyathea caudices), Dicranoloma fasciatum, Hymenophyllum revolutum, Hymenophyton leptopodum, Plagiochila annotina, P. lyallii, Podomitrium phyllanthus, Pyrrhobryum bifarium, Rhizogonium distichum, R. novae-hollandiae, R. pennatum, Saccogynidium australe, Temnoma pulchellum, Trichomanes venosum, Zoopsidella caledonica and Zoopsis argentea.
Comments : The leaves are dull and opaque and the leaf cells are obscured by a fine granular coating (Fig. 103: 2), as in Lepidozia bisbifida and Telaranea elegans. The leaves are often subnitid in dry specimens, but when wetted they appear milky-white and opaque. The underleaves are also characteristic in appearance, with their membranous texture and spatulate lobes (Fig. 103: 3–10). The underleaves are connate on only one side (i.e., the leaves are alternate), and the first branch underleaf is not connate with a stem underleaf.
