Rusty Swan Neck Moss

Campylopus flexuosus has been only found in a few localities in the coastal lowlands of British Columbia and a single locality in the Appalachian Mountains. The occurrences in East Asia and British Columbia may be interpreted as relictual from the Tertiary, from which area C. flexuosus was—in contrast to Europe—not able to spread after the Pleistocene. The only record from the Appalachian Mountains on Flat Rock, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina, is difficult to explain because many similar habitats exist near that vicinity in which the species has not been found. Before 1980, all specimens from North America, except for three labelled as C. flexuosus, belonged in fact to C. tallulensis or rarely to C. surinamensis. Campylopus flexuosus, however, differs from C. tallulensis by thick-walled, chlorophyllose basal laminal cells and small adaxial hyalocysts and in appearence by dark green color. Campylopus tallulensis has hyaline thin-walled basal laminal cells, large adaxial hyalocysts (even visible in surface view of the costa) and commonly a golden yellowish color. Campylopus surinamensis has longer distal laminal cells and the costa ends in a strongly dentate often subhyaline awn.

Plants small to large, 1–10 cm high, olive green or yellowish green, shiny, in dense tufts. Stems erect, or ascending, slightly curved, simple or branched, radiculose below; central strand present. Leaves flexuose when dry, erect-patent or slightly secund when moist, lanceolate, ca. 6 mm long, gradually narrowed to a subulate, denticulate apex; margins plane, entire or only serrulate at the apex; costa occupying ca. ½ the leaf base width, and 2/3 the upper leaf width, excurrent in a concolorous point, smooth or slightly roughened, not ridged at back in the upper part, with only dorsal stereid band in transverse section; upper cells quadrate to short-rectangular or slightly oblique; basal cells rectangular, thick-walled, forming 1–2 rows of narrower cells at the margins; alar cells forming well marked auricles, inflated, often brownish. Dioicous. Sporophytes not seen.

Plants in dense, 1-3 cm, dark green mats, usually reddish tomentose below. Leaves 5-7 mm, erect-patent when wet, flexuose when dry, the distal leaves sometimes curved and secund, lanceolate, ending in a straight concolorous tip, which is serrate in the distal part; alar cells hyaline or reddish; basal laminal cells thick-walled, rectangular, ca. 4-5:1, narrower toward the margins; distal laminal cells quadrate to oblique or short rhombic; costa filling ¹/2-²/3 of leaf width, in transverse section showing abaxial groups of stereids and adaxial small substereidal hyalocysts which are smaller than the median deuters. Specialized asexual reproduction by microphyllous branches in the axils of the distal leaves. Sporophytes not known in North America.

Distribution: China, Nepal, Europe, Russian Far East, North, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Madgascar.

Habitat: on wet soil or soil over rocks in shade.

Dicranum flexuosum Hedwig, Sp. Musc. Frond., 145, plate 38, figs. 1-4. 1801; Campylopus paradoxus Wilson

Campylopus flexuosus (L,.) Brid. Muse. Recent
Suppl. 4: 71. 1819.
Bryum flexuosum I,. Sp. PI. 1118. 1753.
Plants in compact, green or yellowish-green tufts, tomentose within; stems up to 5 cmhigh, often bearing flagellate, clustered branches: leaves about 4.5 or sometimes up to 6 mmlong, rather uniformly placed along the stems, mostly erect when dry or curved-secund at the apex of the stem, from an oblong-lanceolate base gradually narrowed to a point nearly smooth except at the sharply denticulate apex; costa percurrent or slightly excurrent, about 275 m wide at the base and one half the width of the lower part of the leaf, ribbed and slightly serrulate on the back above, in cross-section below showing a row of large ventral cells, a median row nearly as large and a stereid-band on the dorsal side with one row of differentiated cells; alar cells, reddish, more or less inflated and auriculate; cells of the blade just above rectangular, broad, often reddish toward the costa, narrow and pale toward the margin, but not forming a distinct border, with walls thin, not pitted, soon becoming smaller above, from nearly square to rhomboidal,'the median cells 4-6 n wide and 8-10 fi long; perichaetial leaves longer than the stemleaves, rather gradually ffarrowed a little more than one half up to a slender denticulate point: seta 8-10 mm. long, reddish: capsule about 2 mm. long, oval, when dry and empty cylindric, furrowed, and slightly curved; exothecal cells narrow with much thickened walls; peristometeeth reddish-brown, vertically striate, divided about one half down, the inner articulations only about 6-8 p apart; lid red, obliquely beaked, about two thirds the length of the capsule; annulus broad, of 2 or 3 rows of cells: calyptra fimbriate at the base: spores finely papillose, about 12 y. in diameter.
Type locality: Europe.
Distribution: Vancouver Island; Mexico; also in Europe.

Campylopus hellerianus (Hampe) Jaeger, Ber. St. Gall. Nat
Ges. 1870-71: 417. 1872.
Dicranum Hellerianum Hampe, Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien 19: 507. 1869.
Plants in rather loosely cohering, greenish-brown tufts, with strict, scarcely branching stems tomentose below and up to 7 cm. high: leaves up to 6 mm. long by 0.8 mm. wide, uniformly placed along the stems, erect when dry, slightly spreading when moist, lanceolatepointed from a base with mostly parallel margins extending about one fourth up the leaf, the margins above incurved and entire to near the denticulate apex; costa percurrent or slightly excurrent, about three fourths the width of the lower part of the leaf, with smooth ribs less than one cell high on the back, in cross-section near the middle showing large ventral cells-, extending about one half through the costa and a stereid-band on the dorsal side with differentiated cells on either side of the band ; alar cells more or less reddish, inflated, forming rather small or indistinct auricles; cells of the lower part of the blade pale, rectangular, with thin walls, the marginal ones gradually narrower, not forming a distinct border, upward becoming more or less rhomboidal with slightly thickened walls, those in the very narrow upper part of the blade small, short and obscure: fruit unknown.
Typs locality: Huatusco, Vera Cruz. Distribution: Known only from the type locality.