Calypogeia sphagnicola (Arnell & J.Perss.) Warnst. & Loeske
Kantia sphagnicola Arnell & J.Perss., Rev. Bryol. 29: 26. 1902.
Cincinnulus trichomanis var. sphagnicolus (Arnell & J.Perss.) Meyl., Bull. Herb. Boissier, ser. 2, 6: 499. 1906.
Calypogeia trichomanis var. sphagnicola (Arnell & J.Perss.) Meyl., Rev. Bryol. 36: 53. 1909.
Type: Sweden, Prov. Dalarna, Mora, J. Persson.
Plants closely creeping, pale to whitish green, pellucid, nitid, medium, to 3.1 mm wide. Branching variable, the branches of both ventral-intercalary and Frullania types, the intercalary branches somewhat more common, exceptionally Microlepidozia- type branches present. Stems soft-textured, without differentiation of a cortex, all cells leptodermous. Leaves remote to loosely imbricate, plane to more often slightly convex, the apices usually gently decurved, mostly asymmetrically ovate-deltoid, broad-based, tapered to a subacute to narrowly rounded to at times retuse, entire apex, about as wide as long to a little longer than wide, 900–1300 µm wide × 1050–1350 µm long. Cells thin-walled, with trigones minute to small and concave-sided, median leaf cells 31–43(48) µm wide × 38–50 µm long; surface smooth. Oil-bodies (fide Schuster, 2000a) mostly 5–9 per cell, coarsely botryoidal or few-segmented, a few homogeneous. Underleaves remote to contiguous, 2.2–2.8× stem width, bifid to within 4–7 cells of the rhizoid-initial sector, the lobes acute or subacute. Gemmae ellipsoidal, 2-celled at maturity. Fungal partner an ascomycete.
Plants autoecious. Androecia small, compact spicate; bracts in 3–5 pairs. Marsupia with several bractlets at the summit.
Capsule (fide Hodgson, 1967) bistratose; outer layer of cells with incomplete two-phase development: alternating longitudinal walls with continuous sheets of wall material and nodular to spur-like thickenings; inner layer of cells with numerous semiannular bands, the bands wide, closely spaced, nearly all complete.
Distribution and Ecology : Calypogeia sphagnicola is one of a small number of basically Holarctic species that are bipolar in distribution, with isolated stations in the cool to cold southern temperate zones (cf. Schuster, 1969c, 1984b). In the Southern Hemisphere known from New Zealand: South Island (145–1180 m); and southernmost South America (Schuster, 1969c; Engel, 1978). In New Zealand known from Fiordland, Otago, Westland and Western Nelson EPs.
In the Northern Hemisphere with gaps in range, but frequently found in extensive bogs and moors and often abundant, occurring northward into the Arctic, southward throughout areas with extensive conifer forests.
In New Zealand known from a limited number of South Island stations. In Fiordland it occurs at 305 m in Borland Bog near Lake Monowai amongst Sphagnum cristatum, with Kurzia calcarata and a Riccardia species. Also known from the summit of Swampy Hill (N of Dunedin, 600 m) among S. cristatum and S. falcatulum with K. calcarata, Pulchrinodus inflatus and Riccardia, as well as on dripping roadside banks with Balantiopsis tumida, Breutelia pendula, Campylopus clavatus, Lembidium nutans and Warnstorfia fluitans. At the summit plateau of Mt. Maungatua (30 km W of Dunedin, 825 m), over wet peaty soil near the edge of a bog in tussockland with a mosaic of scattered bogs having abundant Sphagnum and patches of Dracophyllum, Halocarpus bidwillii, Hebe and Donatia novae-zelandiae. Not always associated with Sphagnum : occurring, for example, on bank of a streamlet through a thicket of Leptospermum scoparium and Ulex europaeus in the Paparoa Ra. (N side of Tiropahi River, 145 m). On Garibaldi Ridge (Western Nelson EP, 1180 m) it was found in a Schoenus pauciflorus – Bulbinella hookeri sedgeland just above treeline, on soil and sedge leaf litter, with Anisotome aromatica, Breutelia pendula, Clasmatocolea sp., Dicranoloma robustum, Fissidens adianthoides and Cheilolejeunea mimosa.
Comments : A variable plant in the Holarctic, where three forms are recognized by Schuster (1969c); only a small part of the range of variation exists in the south temperate. The distichous-leaved, pale to whitish green shoots, with asymmetrically ovate-deltoid, somewhat ovate or ovate-triangular, bluntly pointed, incubous leaves can hardly be confused with any other regional species. Several species of Radula are similar in aspect in dorsal view due to the incubous, longitudinally inserted, unlobed and entire leaves and comparable plant size. That genus is devoid of underleaves and the leaf has a small ventral lobule. Bazzania may have similar unlobed leaves, but is nearly always tridentate-leaved, is much firmer-textured, at times brownish pigmented and bears conspicuous ventral-intercalary stoloniform branches. This species, like almost all basically Holarctic species that have a bipolar distribution, is dioecious.
Rodway (1916) described Calypogeia tasmanica Rodway (Pap. & Proc. Roy. Soc. Tasmania 1915: 107. 1916; type: Tasmania, Adamson’s Peak). Schuster (1969c, p. 135) stated that he “[could] find no real differences between the plant from Tasmania . . . and C. sphagnicola.” The status of C. tasmanica should be evaluated prior to a formal placement of the species in the synonymy of C. sphagnicola.
The species description above was fashioned to include only New Zealand populations of the species.
Hodgson (1967) included figures of the capsule wall that were accredited to George Scott. These figures are the only source of sporophyte data, as Hodgson did not provide a description of the capsule, spores or elaters. Unfortunately the collection from which the figures were drawn is not cited and a New Zealand provenance is uncertain.
