Elegant Fissidens Moss

Fissidens elegans Brid. Muse. Recent. Suppl
1: 167. 1806.
Skitopkyllum elegans Pylaie, Jour, de Bot. Desv. II. 4: 152. 1814. Fissidens interntedius C. Miill. I^innaea 21: 181. 1848. Fissidens cuspidulatus SuU. Proc. Am. Acad. 5: 274. 1861. Conomitrium hemiloma Besch. Rev. Bryol. 18: 52. 1891. Fissidens fiavifrons Besch. Rev. Bryol. 18: 54. 1891. Fissidens Hancockiana Steere, Rep. Hancock Exp. 3*: 2. 1936. Fissidens Willisiae E. Bartr.; B. Willis, Bryologist 42: 152. 1939.
Plants in scattered cushions; stems slender, erect or decumbent, usually simple, rarely proliferous from old stems, the fertile ones 1-5 mm. with 3-10 pairs of leaves, the sterile sometimes 1 cm. high with 15-25; leaves generally distant, not crowded or overlapping, often somewhat secund at apex when dry, 1 X 0.25 mm., generally all but the very lowest bordered on the vaginant laminae, the costa stout, clear, percurrent to very shortly excurrent into a short sharp point, rarely ending sUghtly below the apex in a few large clear cells, in cross section with large guides and 2 stereid bands; vaginant laminae extending about two-thirds the length of the leaf, unequal and oblique, the border often toothed, the margins plane, crenulate with projecting cell-angles, often with 2 papillae; upper leaf-cells obscure, irregularly polygonal, dz 5 ^ in diameter with 1-2 papillae, those of the vaginant laminae hexagonal to short-rectangular, up to 10 ju, with 2-4 papillae on the outer surface only; dorsal lamina extending nearly or quite to base, ending abruptly, papillose on both surfaces; perichaetial leaves somewhat longer with vaginant laminae very unequal, sometimes one side narrowed to the costa; dioicous or autoicous, the antheridia either terminal on full-sized plants or in small buds from lateral innovatioiis on old plants or from radicles; sporophyte terminal; seta erect or bent at base, up to 4-5 mm. long, sometimes 2 from the same perichaetium ; calyptra small; operculum rostrate; annulus narrow and hyaline; capsule oblong to ovoid, erect or inclined, nearly or quite symmetric, 0.75-1 mm. long, contracted below the mouth when dry, the exothedal cells quadrate to oblong-rectangular, 27 /x long, more or less collenchymatous and incrassate (nodose in type), the dry neck often swollen with large stomata; peristome-teeth spreading when dry, strongly incurved when moist, cristateciliate at base, spirally thickened at the apex of the forks; spores smooth, 10-13 m m diameter, maturing from February to May.
Type W>cai.iTY : Hispaniola {Poiteau; type seen) .
Distribution: On soil and moist stones; West Indies; Mexico; South America.