Cephaloziella crassigyna (R.M.Schust.) R.M.Schust.
Cephaloziella aterrima var. crassigyna R.M.Schust., Nova Hedwigia 22: 211. pl. 24, 25. 1972 (1971).
Cephaloziella crassigyna (R.M.Schust.) R.M.Schust., Nova Hedwigia 61: 556. 1995.
Holotype: New Zealand, South Is., Fiordland Natl. Park, Humboldt Mtns., track from Lake Howden to Earland Falls, Schuster 48697.
Plants vigorous, intensely blackish to piceous but without trace of reddish pigments even on ♀ bracts and perianths, the semi-buried lower regions olive-green, the shoots (except on remote-leaved lower sectors) to 500 µm wide with leaves. Stems slender, smooth. Leaves mostly erect-spreading, remote, becoming contiguous only near gynoecia and in androecial sectors, never sheathing stem, loosely concave but never conduplicate-folded (except perhaps near gynoecia), oblong-ovate or short-oblong to subquadrate, mostly somewhat longer than broad, on gynoecial axes to 150–165 µm wide × 190–210 µm long, to 180–190 µm wide × 210–240 µm long, on lower, remote-leaved sectors of stems considerably smaller, entire and smooth-margined, bifid to 0.5–0.6; lobes equal or subequal, plane and not adaxially concave, becoming erect and with lobe apices often weakly incurved, entire, 8–13 cells wide on larger leaves, acute but usually ending in a single, non-differentiated cell; sinus V-shaped, not gibbous at base; disc 6–8 cells high, ca. 16 cells broad, the abaxial surface smooth, unarmed. Cells 9–12 µm wide × (12)13–16 µm long at lobe bases; surface with low, rather close and coarse cuticular papillae. Underleaves lacking or reduced to a mucilage papilla. Asexual reproduction (gemmae) lacking.
Autoecious but often pseudodioecious, the ♂ and ♀ branches long, often remote from each other. Androecia on long axes and/or innovations from unfertilized gynoecia, terminal but becoming intercalary, laxly spicate, not broader than adjacent vegetative areas; bracts in 3–5 or more pairs, pouched at base, the lobes erect, entire-margined. Gynoecia, if unfertilized, with 1–3 sometimes clustered innovations, the innovations elongating but sooner or later producing androecia or other gynoecia; bracts broadly rounded-quadrate, bilobed to 0.5, bluntly pointed at the apex, entire-margined but sinuous or weakly to obscurely 1–2-dentate with low, broad teeth, the sinus broadly V-shaped; bracteole connate to ca. 0.35–0.45 with bracts on both sides, usually ovate-lanceolate, the triangular apex normally unlobed and entire, mostly blunt to subacute. Perianth extremely long and slender at maturity, subterete below, deeply 4–5-plicate in distal half or more, only weakly and gently narrowed to the wide mouth; mouth crenulate from the free, thick-walled ends of weakly elongated (1.5–2.5:1) cells; perianth 4–5-stratose in basal 0.2–0.25, becoming 1–2-stratose in the middle and 1-stratose only above the middle. Calyptra thin, unistratose to near base.
Seta with 4 rows of very large inflated outer cells and 4 rows of tiny inner cells opposed to the outer ones.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: South Island (Humboldt Mtns., Westland EP). Known only from the type, which occurred in large patches on thin peaty soil over rather permanently moist, strongly insolated rock ledges, in the uppermost Nothofagus menziesii forest zone.
Comments : The perianth bases in this species are rigid, fleshy and 4–5-stratose in the basal 0.2–0.25. This feature is unknown in any other species of Cephaloziella, and at once will separate C. crassigyna (when perianths are present) from all other New Zealand species of the genus.
Confusion with Cephalomitrion aterrimum is possible. Both plants tend to form wiry, blackish shoots, and according to Schuster (2002a), tend to occur in alpine sites on seepage-wet rocks (although the type of Cephaloziella crassigyna is from the uppermost Nothofagus menziesii zone). Cephaloziella crassigyna has obliquely erect-spreading leaves that are clearly distinct from the stem, a strongly elongated perianth that is 4–5-stratose toward the base, and has fuscous pigmentation. Cephalomitrion aterrimum, on the other hand, has scale-like leaves that are closely appressed to the stem, so much so that the leaves are difficult to distinguish, short perianths that are unistratose or at most 2-stratose at the base, and develops vinaceous pigmentation.
