Cephaloziella pseudocrassigyna R.M.Schust ex J.J.Engel
Cephaloziella pseudocrassigyna R.M.Schust. ex J.J.Engel, Novon 17: 313. 2007.
Holotype: New Zealand, South Is., Fiordland Natl. Park, Mt. Burns, Schuster 84-115.
[Fig. 128: 4, oil-bodies, p. 558]
Plants soft-textured, light clear translucent green, exposed sectors rusty red. Stem unarmed. Leaves remote to contiguous, never folded or conduplicate, symmetrically bilobed, the lobes equal, usually 7–11 cells broad at base, blunt to subacute, entire, the abaxial face of leaves unarmed. Cells somewhat firm-walled, the lumina angular, the cells subisodiametric, ca. 11–13 µm wide × 11–15 µm long at lobe bases. Oil-bodies (Schuster, 1996a) usually 2–3 per cell, faintly granular, almost smooth, rather large, 3–4.5 µm and spherical to ovoid and 4 × 4.5–5.5 µm to 3.5 × 4.8 µm, rarely isolated ones only 2.5 µm in diam. Underleaves (sterile shoots) lacking. Gemmae unknown.
Autoecious, but pseudodioecious. Perianth with 5 blunt to rounded plicae, the mouth setulose with cells strongly elongated, usually 4–5.5:1, free at their tapered, narrow, thick-walled apices; perianth 1-stratose at base.
Sporophyte unknown.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: South Island (930 m). Type material was found on peaty ground of a small rill in a late snow area. The only other known collection is from an exposed thick peaty soil layer over rock in a boggy area within a mosaic of wet depressions, tussock grass, Dracophyllum, Libocedrus bidwillii and small thickets of Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides (Bealey Valley track, Arthur’s Pass Natl. Park, Canterbury, 930 m).
Comments : Plants are rather vigorous for the genus and in the field appear somewhat like a miniature Allisoniella. Leaves are concave, often contiguous, with lobes suberect, often blunt to subacute and 7–11 cells broad at base. Cells are firm-walled, but the lumina are angular and never guttulate. Perianths are unistratose, bluntly 5-plicate and the mouth is setulose, with free ends of the cells at the mouth narrow (4–5.5:1), tapered and thick-walled.
The oil-bodies of the Bealey Valley track plant (Fig. 128: 4, leg. Engel and von Konrat) are small and inconspicuous, dull, opaque, 2–4 per cell in lower to middle lobe cells, and irregularly roughened with a faintly lumpy aspect, the oil-bodies each differing in their irregularity.
