Campylopus Moss

The description above refers to North American plants of Campylopus pyriformis—specimens from other parts of its range have a somewhat different appearance. This species was first recorded for North America (T. Arts and J.-P. Frahm 1990) based on collections made by W. D. Reese. The occurrence in North America at only three localities in Louisiana and Mississippi, and an additional unpublished record from Florida, can perhaps be explained by introduction facilitated by the presence of rhizoidal tubers. It may therefore be doubted whether this species is native in North America. However, the small form found in the United States resembles a form occurring in Brazil in similar habitats, from which area it may have been introduced by birds. Similar disjunctions between Brazil and southeast North America are also found in C. surinamensis, C. carolinae and C. angustiretis, which all conspicuously grow together on bare, acid, white sand. Campylopus pyriformis was also found mixed with C. surinamensis, but can be distinguished by the more elongate, narrowly lanceolate leaves with a channelled apex, a long-excurrent nerve and a lamina ending at mid leaf and colorless rhizoidal tubers instead of the reddish or reddish brown ones as in C. surinamensis.

Plants 3 mm, gregarious or in loose, low tufts, forming low rosettes, appearing stemless, light to olive green. Leaves 3 mm, erect-patent, flexuose when dry, from lanceolate base gradually con-tracted into a long, fine, straight, concolorous, distinctly canaliculate subula; margins serrate in the distal part of the leaves; alar cells scarcely differentiated; basal laminal cells hyaline, thin-walled, rectangular; distal laminal cells thick-walled, rectangular, ca. 4:1; costa filling ¹/2-²/3 of leaf width, excurrent, in transverse section with large, empty, adaxial hyalocysts and abaxial groups of stereids, abaxially smooth. Specialized asexual reproduction by colorless, multicellular, long-cylindric rhizoidal tubers, 300-700 µm long, deciduous leaves and small brood leaves produced at stem tips. Sporophytes not present in North America.

Plants small to medium-sized, 5–35 mm high, yellowish green to yellowish brown, in weakly shiny, compact tufts. Stems erect, simple or branched by innovations, not comose foliate, tomentose below. Leaves 2–7 mm long, lower ones appressed, upper ones somewhat flexuose or homomallous, erect-patent when moist, lanceolate, rather abruptly narrowed from an oblong-ovate base to a slender subula, ending in a channeled tip; margins plane, entire below, only serrulate near the apex; costa broad, occupying 2/5 – 3/5 the leaf base width, shortly excurrent, not ending in a hyaline point, smooth at back in the upper part, with only dorsal stereid band in transverse section; upper cells short-rectangular, moderately incrassate; basal cells rectangular or irregularly rhomboidal, rather thin-walled, hyaline; alar cells not well differentiated, usually hyaline, delicate. Dioicous. Setae straight when dry, cygneous when moist, light brownish; capsules erect, or somewhat inclined, ellipsoidal, slightly asymmetric, smooth when dry, brownish; opercula short-rostrate; annuli in 2–3 rows of large cells, deciduous; peristome teeth divided nearly to the middle, vertically papillose-striate below, reddish brown. Calyptrae fringed at base. Spores 8–17 µm in diameter, verrucose.

Distribution: China, India, Mongolia, Russia, Europe, North and South America, and Australia.

Habitat: on soil and rocks, or on bases of trees and rotten wood.

Dicranum pyriforme Schultz, Prodr. Fl. Starg. Suppl., 73. 1819

Campylopus flexuosus (Hedw.) Brid. ssp. pyriformis (Schultz) Dix., Stud. Handb. Brit. Mosses 95. 1896. Campylopus fragilis (Brid.) Bruch & Schimp. var. pyriformis (Schultz) Agst., Ned. Kruidk. Arch. 57: 332. 1950.

Campylopus pyriformis is a species of moss belonging to the family Dicranaceae. It has a cosmopolitan distribution.