Fissidens mollis

Fissidens mollis Mitt. Jour. lyinn. Soc
12: 600. 1869.
Fissidens macropkyllus Mitt. Jotir. lyinn, Soc. 12: 600, in part. 1869. Conomitrium hryodictyon Besch. Rev. Bryol. 18: 50. 1891. Conomitrium Jtexifrons Besch. Rev. Bryol. 18: 51, in part. 1891.
Plants gregarious or cespitose, often sterile and propagating by brown, septate broodbodies borne in clusters on filaments at the base of the leaves; stems erect or ascending, sometimes decumbent and radiculose, stout, up to 1 cm. in length; leaves 10-20 pairs, flaccid, much contracted and twisted when dry, spreading and undiilate when moist, not crowded or imbricate, sometimes rather distant, 3-5 X 0.5-0.9 mm. (the smaller sizes more common), narrowly lanceolate, the costa narrow, rarely percurrent, variable in length even on the same stem, generally ending a short distance below the apiculate, occasionally slightly toothed, and somewhat blunt to acute apex; apical lamina about equaling the vaginant laminae in length or somewhat shorter and wider, the margins with a broad, thick, terete border of 4—6 stereid cells; vaginant laminae more or less unequal and contracted to the very oblique junction, the border wider, flattened; dorsal lamina narrow, tapering and bordered to the base, sometimes vanishing with border confluent with the costa ; one perichaetial leaf sometimes smaller ; apical cells large, distinct, hexagonal, up to 35 X 15 ^t, the basal cells longer, up to 60 ^t; dioicous; setae sometimes 2 from the same perichaetium, curved or ascending, sometimes geniculate, about 5-8 mm. long; capsules erect or inclined, the urn about 1 mm. long, ovoid with a distinct neck, the walls composed of hexagonal collenchyma cells up to 27 X 40/i; calyptra a Httle over 1 mm.; operculum with a long beak, as long as the urn; peristome dark red, the teeth paler and spirally thickened at apex, their basal ventral plates ciliate-cristate, the dorsal plates projecting; spores smooth, 13-16 ju in diameter, sometimes elliptic, maturing in summer.
Type IvOCawty: Near Bath, Jamaica. (Type seen.)
Distribution: On rocks in moist woods and on wet banks bordering streams; Cuba; Jamaica; Puerto Rico; Guadeloupe; Martinique; Trinidad; Mexico; Costa Rica; also in South America.
Plate 1./. 14-22.