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California Moss eFlora

Jan 1 2013 ·

Home · List of Genera · Key to Keys · Accepted Names · Synonyms · For Beginners · Subdivisions of CA · Jepson eFlora for CA Vascular Plants

Anacolia W. P. Schimper, 1876, nomen conservandum.



Anacolia is easily recognized even in the field by the combination of the narrowly subulate, somewhat to strongly erect leaves on a plant whose older portions are covered with red-brown rhizoids so densely as to obscure the stem. Anacolia grows on rock outcrops and on thin soil. Like other members of the Bartramiaceae, Anacolia has highly distinctive capsules, mostly spherical or short elliptic with an inconspicuously apiculate operculum. These capsules are not truly sulcate but they are strongly and irregularly wrinkled when deoperculate. Although Bartramiaceae are acrocarpous, Anacolia often form strongly creeping, outwardly spreading clones.

Key to Anacolia Etc.

The mosses in this key are acrocarpous mosses with narrowly subulate leaves and excurrent costae. Leaf cross-sections often show bands of multistratose laminal cells. The lower portions of the stems are always cloaked with dense red-brown, densely papillose rhizoids. These rhizoids are inserted in a halo around incipient branch buds, and the complex including the rhizoids is termed the macronematal apparatus. The macronematal apparatus is shown throughout the Order Bryales, and is probably homologous with the pseudoparaphyllial complex in pleurocarpous mosses. The shape and size of the macronematal apparatus is often of taxonomic significance, and it can easily be seen by removing leaves and most of the rhizoids from the stems. The macronematal apparatus then appears as a cluster of thin-walled, pale cells surrounded by the stumps of the removed rhizoids.

The family Bartramiaceae includes two western North American groups — the subulate-leaved Anacolia, Bartramia, Flowersia and Plagiopus, and the lanceolate leaved Philonotis and Conostomum. Axillary hairs have been found to be of special value in the Bartramiaceae (Griffin and Buck 1989), but study of that feature shows incomplete agreement with the leaf shape features. Anacolia, Bartramia, and Plagiopus have filamentose axillary hairs without basal brown cells, while Philonotis has very short, distally enlarged axillary hairs with a strongly differentiated basal brown cell. Conostomum and the southwestern United States Flowersia (segregated from Anacolia) have elongate hairs with strongly differentiated basal brown cells.

Species included in this key are all in Bartramiaceae:
Anacolia baueri Hampe
Anacolia laevisphaera (Taylor) Flowers in Grout
Anacolia menziesii (Turner) Paris
Bartramia halleriana Hedwig, not known from CA
Bartramia ithyphylla Bridel
Bartramia pomiformis Hedwig
Bartramia stricta Bridel
Plagiopus oederianus (Swartz) H. Crum & L. E. Anderson, not known from CA

A. Leaf base erect and encircling stem thus forming a sheath from which arises the outwardly flexed limb .....Bartramia: B. ithyphylla
A. Leaf base not strictly erect, not forming a sheath .....B

B. Leaves strongly crispate when dry .....C
B. Leaves stiffly erect or spreading when dry .....E

C. Leaves three-ranked with stem cross-section rounded triangular; median laminal cells cuticular papillose .....Plagiopus: P. oederianus not known from CA
C. Leaves spirally inserted with stem cross-section rounded pentagonal; median laminal cells prorate .....D

D. Leaf base gradually contracted toward leaf limb without a definition of a shoulder; plant glaucous; capsule exserted on a long seta .....Bartramia: B. pomiformis
D. Leaf base with parallel sides, constricted to the limb at a region clearly defined as a shoulder; plants brownish-green; capsule on such a short seta as to appear immersed .....Bartramia halleriana not known from CA

E. Leaves not at all plicate at base; plant mostly growing on soil in moist to seasonally moist habitats .....Bartramia: B. stricta
E. Leaves plicate at least at immediate base; plant mostly growing on rocks or on very thin soil over rocks .....F

F. Cells prorate at both their distal and proximal ends in most of limb .....Anacolia laevisphaera
F. Cells nearly smooth except in extreme distal portion of limb .....G

G. Capsule oblong to short-cylindric; spores less than 25 µm broad; seta more than 1 cm long; dry leaves on branch apices forming a tight cluster with all subulae closely parallel .....Anacolia baueri
G. Capsule ovoid to globose; spores more than 25 µm; seta less than 1 cm long; leaves of branch apices forming a loose cluster with all subulae lightly divergent .....Anacolia menziesii


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