Cephaloziella rufobrunnea R.M.Schust.
Cephaloziella rufobrunnea R.M.Schust., Beih. Nova Hedwigia 119: 144. f. 265A. 2002.
Holotype: New Zealand, South Is., Fiordland, below Gertrude Cirque, NE of Homer Tunnel, 1740 m, Schuster 95-2050a.
Plants wiry, rusty red-brown, tiny, 165–265 µm wide. Branching sparing, the branches (only a few known) lateral-intercalary. Stems with cortex poorly differentiated, the cells (aside from free walls) leptodermous; medullary cells leptodermous. Leaves vertically oriented, often erect-spreading, somewhat distant to contiguous to weakly imbricate, often loosely folded, transverse, concave to canaliculate concave, broadly ovate to orbicular-ovate, 180–200 µm wide × long, bilobed to 0.2–0.3(0.35); lobes acute, triangular, the sinus V-shaped. Cells thin- to firm-walled, the angles of the lumina somewhat rounded, in median lamina 12–14 × 13–16(18) µm, in lobe middle 10–12 × 10–13 µm, to 12–14 × 13–18 µm basally; surface smooth or feebly striolate. Gemmae unknown.
?Dioecious, only putative ♂ known. Leaves in and near what appear to be androecia are denser, more concave and larger, but antheridia unknown. Androecia and gynoecia unknown.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: South Island (1740 m).
Schuster (2002a, p. 144) remarked that “the type occurred amidst a fuscous, sterile, reduced Jamesoniella, with Lophozia cf. bicrenata (red gemmae), Marsupella sprucei and other taxa of ‘difficult,’ exposed sites.”
Comments : Schuster (2002a) was uncertain of the affinities of the species and included it in the appendix to Cephaloziella. Plants have the appearance of a tiny Anastrophyllum, and the leaf shape and the shallow sinus immediately suggests lophozioids. On the other hand the thin-walled cells are much too small for an Anastrophyllum and more closely resemble those of a Cephaloziella.
The species is validly published in Schuster (2002a), though the essential elements are scattered—it has a Latin diagnosis, a type is cited in the figure legend (p. 145) and a herbarium is cited in the text (p. 144).
