Tortella tortuosa (Hedw.) Limpr.

  • Authority

    Sharp, Aaron J., et al. 1994. The Moss Flora of Mexico. Part One: Sphagnales to Bryales. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 69 (1): 1-452.

  • Family

    Pottiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Tortella tortuosa (Hedw.) Limpr.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Plants green above, light-brown below, irregularly branched, up to 4 0 mm high. Stems matted with red-brown radicles below, rounded-pentagonal in section, showing a distinct hyaloderm and central strand weak or none. Leaves incurved-contorted or spiraled when dry, wide-spreading when moist, 5-7 mm long, long-lanceolate to linear-subulate, acute or abruptly rounded, sharply apiculate, flat or slightly concave; margins often fractured; costa covered on the ventral surface nearly to the apex by quadrate, papillose cells, on the dorsal surface by long, smooth cells; upper cells 8-12 µm, 1 (—2): 1, weakly convex, bearing 4-6 bifid papillae on both surfaces (crowded and occasionally fused); basal cells 8-20 µm wide, 3-10:1. Dioicous. Setae 15-30 mm long; capsules 2-3.5 mm long; operculum 1.5-2.5 mm long; peristome 1.1-1.4 mm long, twisted 2-3 times. Spores 8-12 µm, yellowish, smooth or weakly papillose.

  • Discussion

    Fig. 178

    T. tortuosa (Hedw.) Limpr., Laubm. Deutschl. 1: 604. 1888.

    Tortula tortuosa Hedw., Sp. Muse. 124. 1801.

    Tortella guatemalensis Bartr., Bryologist 49: 113. 1946.

    Plants with rather broad leaf bases and large stereid bands may be mistaken for Pseudosymblepharis. Certain shortleaved variants resemble Tortella japonica but have a dioicous rather than an autoicous sexuality. Plants with short leaves abruptly rounded at the tip (Tortella guatemalensis) occur in Latin America but not northward. A form with fragile leaves with undulate margins and large spiculose-bifid papillae (10-13 µm in diameter) occurs in north-temperate zones but only rarely in Mexico, but intermediates with similar characters in various combinations are found in Latin America. (See discussions under Oxystegus tenuirostris and Weissia jamaicensis.)

  • Distribution

    On rock (often calcareous) and tree trunks at middle elevations; Chiapas, Coahuila, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Veracruz.—Mexico and Guatemala; widespread in the Northern Hemisphere; in North America from Greenland to Alaska and south to North Carolina, the Great Lakes region, Wyoming, and Oregon.

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