Encalypta pilifera Funck reinstated to the British flora

摘要

While recording bryophytes in the limestone dales of the Peak District over many years, I haveoccasionally encountered an Encalypta that is immediately distinct in having leaves with a hair-point, usually yellow-brown below and hyaline at the apex. Other bryologists have reported similar collections, both in the Peak District and in Wales. Theseplants have capsules that lack a peristome and are at most weakly ribbed when mature, with faint coloured striae rarely visible on the exothecium (in this paper, striae refers to coloured but not raised bands). They are morphologically close to Encalyptavulgaris Hcdw., which is often present in the same localities. In The moss flora of Britain and Ireland, Smith (1978, 2004) makes no mention of such plants in his account of E. vulgaris. However, they have been known to occur in Britain since the middleof the nineteenth century. In his description of E. vulgaris in Bryologia Britannica, Wilson (1855) cites a var. s pilifera from Youlgreave and Buxton in Derbyshire, with the diagnosis 'peristome wanting; leaves pilifcrous'. He notes that the British piliferous plant 'has leaves rather short and somewhat obovate-oblong, or spathulate'. Braithwaite's (1888-1895) treatment is essentially the same, though he uses the invalid generic name Leersia (Hedw.) ex Batsch in place of Encalypta. Dixon (1924) is less than enthusiastic about the varieties of E. vulgaris, but mentions var. pilifera as one of the most important forms, havingthe 'leaves terminating in a long cuspidate point formed by the lamina of the excurrent nerve'.