Smith's Leptodon Moss

Leptodon smithii

Leptodon smithii (Hedw.) Web. & Mohr, Ind. Mus. Pl. Crypt. 2, 1803.

Hypnum smithii Hedw., Sp. Musc. 264, 1801. [Original material: Near Barham Downs, Kent, England, coll. J. E. Smith.]

Leptodon beccarii C. Müll., Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital. 4:19, 1872. [Original material: Abyssinia, coll. O. Beccari, 1870.]

Leptodon novae-seelandiae C. Müll., Hedwigia 41:131, 1902. [Original material: Waimakariri Gorge, North Canterbury, and at Birling’s Flat, Bank’s Peninsula, New Zealand, coll. T. W. N. Beckett, Oct. 1890.]

Leptodon australis C. Müll., Hedwigia 41:132, 1902. [Original material: Mossvale, New South Wales, coll. Whitelegge, Nov. 1884.]

Usually epiphytic plants with frondose stems mostly ca. 1.5 cm long. Stem leaves 1.0 mm long, 0.5 mm wide, oblong from broadly ovate base; branch leaves ca. 0.5 mm long, 0.3 mm wide, oblong; all leaves with tips obtusely acute to rounded, sometimes slightly apiculate; margins narrowly recurved below; costa 20–30 μm wide at midleaf; cells of upper lamina short-rhomboidal, mostly 8–10 μm wide, 10–12 μm long, arranged in oblique rows; many rows of cells along lower margins very small, 7–8 μm in diameter, rounded to subquadrate; inner basal cells more elongate, to 40 μm long in stem leaves. Setae ca. 2.0 mm long. Capsule urn ca. 1.5 mm long; spores elliptical, 17–25 μm long, minutely papillose.

The species is known from Europe, the Canary Islands, Central, East, and South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and southern South America. Collections have been reported from Juan Fernandez by both Brotherus (1924) and Bartram (1957) but no material has been seen in this study.