Gymnostomum aeruginosum Smith (1804: 1163)

Cano, María J. & Jiménez, Juan A., 2013, A taxonomic revision of the tribe Pleuroweisieae (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta) in South America, Phytotaxa 143 (1), pp. 1-42 : 37

Gymnostomum aeruginosum Smith (1804: 1163) .

This species has been reported in South America from many countries: Argentina ( Matteri 1985), Brazil ( Costa et al. 2011, Yano 2011), Chile ( Müller 2009), Colombia, Peru and Venezuela ( Churchill et al. 2000). Many of the specimens that form the bases of reports from Andean areas proved to be misidentified and actually represent other genera - frequently Molendoa , Anoectangium or Didymodon Hedwig (1801: 104) . The material from Chile located was Gymnostomum calcareum , probably due to many authors considered G. aeruginosum and G. calcareum conspecific according to Zander (1977), but not Zander & Eckel (2007a). We are not be able to locate Argentinian material in BA (provisionally not available), but this probably corresponds to G. calcareum , because Matteri (1985) considered both species conspecific too. Unfortunately, we have not been able to study any specimen from Brazil. Until more material identified as this species can be studied, G. aeruginosum is tentatively excluded from the studied area.