Epipterygium oreophilum Hanusch, 2020

Hanusch, Maximilian, Ortiz, Edgardo M., Patiño, Jairo & Schaefer, Hanno, 2020, Biogeography and integrative taxonomy of Epipterygium (Mniaceae, Bryophyta), TAXON 69 (6), pp. 1150-1171 : 1161-1162

Epipterygium oreophilum Hanusch , sp. nov. –

Holotype: BHUTAN. Deothan District, 1 km east of Keri Gompa on Pemagatshel–Tshilingor road ; 27 Ǫ 02′43.6′′N, 91 Ǫ 26′ 02.4′′E, altitude: ca. 2000 m, Evergreen Quercus lamellosa forest slopes, disturbed and grazed; on thin soil on vertical bank, 8 May 2011, D.G. Long & K. Wangchuck s.n. (E barcode E00884194! ).

Diagnosis. – A smaller Epipterygium species with stems ranging between 3 and 5 mm in size. Dull, bluish-green or sometimes pink plants. Dorsal and ventral leaves scarcely dimorphic, Dorsal leaves 1–1.5 mm long, ovate, acute to cuspidate, entire, non-serrate. Costa ending at half of lamina. Perichaetial leaves serrate to about half of the length, acute. Dorsal leave median cells 60–110 μm long, 15–40 μm wide, rhomboidal. Linear marginal cells present forming a weak border. Illustrated in Fig. 7 .

Distribution. – Himalaya. Bhutan, Nepal, China.

Note. – C. Müller (1901) described E. falconeri from Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India (North-West Himalaya), which was later synonymized with E. tozeri ( Van der Wijk & al., 1962). Despite the geographical proximity of collection sites, it seems unlikely that our new species E. oreophilum or E. yunnanense are conspecific to E. falconeri . We did not study the microscopical characters of the type specimen (Duthie s.n., PC 2-D barcode PC0130926, https://science.mnhn.fr/institution/mnhn/ collection/pc/item/pc0130926) but based on the description, the median cells of the species are distinctly narrower than those of E. tozeri (“[…] welche durch ein weit engeres Blattnetz sogleich von E. tozeri abweicht.”). This is in contrast to what we find in both E. oreophilum and E. yunnanense , where the cells are much wider than in E. tozeri (length-to-width ratio of 3.37 ± 0.47 and 3.87 ± 0.57, respectively, compared to a ratio of 5.01 ± 1.05 in E. tozeri ).

Figures

Fig. 7. Epipterygium oreophilum sp. nov. A, Habitus; B, Dorsal leaf; C, Perichaetial leaf apex.