Cephaloziella grandiretis (R.M.Schust.) R.M.Schust.
Cephaloziella grandiretis (R.M.Schust.) R.M.Schust., Nova Hedwigia 63: 35. 1996.
Holotype: New Zealand, South Is., Fiordland Natl. Park, Humboldt Mtns., track from Lake MacKenzie to Harris Saddle, ca. 4000 ft., Schuster 67-356.
Plants anisophyllous, vigorous, helophytic, soft-textured, clear green to locally vinaceous or brownish purple (at least in upper portions of leaves), creeping to loosely caespitose, to 350–400 µm wide with leaves. Branching remote and irregular, the branches all ventral- intercalary; stolons or flagelliform branches absent. Stems stout, flexuous, the cortical cells weakly thick-walled, without cellular projections but with weak striolations. Leaves variable, erect or suberect to occasionally obliquely spreading, usually loosely folded-conduplicate, exceptionally remote, transverse to perceptibly succubous in insertion but transversely oriented and ± vertical, usually short-oblong or subquadrate to ovate-oblong, large, 300–380(410) µm wide × 350–410(515) µm long, bilobed to (0.65)0.7–0.8; lobes lanceolate-triangular, 8–11(14) cells broad at base, apices often incurved, ending in a sharp tip formed of 1–2(3) rather elongated cells; margins often crenulate-dentate to sparsely denticulate, but disc margins often with 1–2 coarse basal teeth or laciniae or accessory lobes; abaxial face of leaf smooth, or occasionally armed with low, gibbous, 1–2(3)-celled projections, but never armed with spinose processes; sinus with the V-shaped base sometimes reflexed. Cells thin-walled or the walls feebly thickened, large, at lobe bases 15–19(21) µm wide × (18)20–26(30) µm long; surface with low, rather coarse and closely set papillae. Oil-bodies (Schuster, 1972a) (3–5)6–12(15) per cell, ellipsoidal and 2.8–3.2 × 4–4.5 µm to 4 × 5.2 µm, or spherical and 2–4.2 µm in diam. Underleaves present throughout, very variable, large, oblong to irregularly quadrate, bifid or toothed or both, or with 1–several basal teeth or laciniae; abaxial faces smooth. Gemmae lacking (type) or present.
Dioecious. Androecia becoming intercalary; ♂ Bracts in 3–6 imbricate pairs. Gynoecia not seen.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: South Island (1220 m).
Known only from the type, collected in the penalpine tussock zone on peaty ground at the edge of a tarn, mixed with Hygrolembidium acrocladum.
Comments : This species is similar to Cephaloziella byssacea in 1) the remote leaves, which tend to have suberect lobes from a somewhat spreading base; 2) large and conspicuous underleaves throughout; 3) leaf lobes mostly 9–10 or more cells broad at the base (although the lobes may be up to 14 cells wide in larger leaves); 4) development of intensely violet or purplish pigmentation; and 5) a tendency, on some shoots, for development of abaxial cellular projections of the basal part of the leaf disc. In fact, C. grandiretis was originally regarded as a subspecies of C. byssacea by Schuster (1972a).
Cephaloziella grandiretis differs from C. byssacea in 1) the much larger leaf cells, which are the largest known for any of our Cephaloziella species, 15–19(21) µm wide × (18)20–26(30) µm long at lobe bases vs. (8)9–12(13) µm wide × 12–15 µm long in C. byssacea; 2) the more deeply divided leaves, bifid to 0.7–0.8 vs. to 0.5–0.65 in C. byssacea; and 3) the more numerous oil-bodies per cell, usually 6–12 per cell vs. 2–3(5) per cell in C. byssacea.
