Cataract Scopelophila Moss

Scopelophila cataractae has the appearance of Tortula but is distinguishable by the dense red tomentum and small, smooth distal laminal cells. Sulphurous smell at a North Carolina station (McDowell County, Newberry Creek gorge, below Mount Mitchell) indicates presence of associated mineral ores. The disjunctive California station (A. J. Steen 1986) is at an old copper mine. Male plants are apparently very rare (A. J. Shaw 1993).

Plants small to medium-sized to rather large, to 2 cm high, soft, green to yellowish green or brownish, in loose or dense tufts. Stems erect, simple or rarely branched. Leaves strongly crisped when dry, spreading when moist, ca. 2–3 mm long, lingulate or ligulate to elliptic-lanceolate, narrowed at the base, slenderly to broadly acute; margins plane or somewhat recurved below, entire; costa slender, percurrent; upper leaf cells rounded-quadrate to irregularly hexagonal, thin- to moderately thick-walled, smooth; basal cells short-rectangular, somewhat enlarged, rather thin-walled, smooth. Setae ca. 3–4 mm long; capsules erect, short-cylindrical with a narrowed mouth.

Stems with red rhizoids or red-tomentose. Cauline leaves brown proximally; margins seldom bordered by thick-walled cells; apex acute or short-acuminate; costa with 2 layers of paren-chymatous cells adaxial to the stereid band. Sporophytes not seen in area of the flora.

Distribution: China, Korea, Japan, Nepal, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, North and South America.

Habitat: on rocks or thin soil over rocks.

Merceya cataractae (Mitt.) C. Müll., Gen. Musc. Frond. 384. 1900. Merceya gedeana (Sande Lac.) Nog., Kumamoto J. Sci., Sect. 2, Biol. 2: 247. 1956. Pottia gedeana Sande Lac., Verh. Kon. Ned. Akad. Wetensch., Afd. Natuurk. 13: 4. 2 B. 1872. Merceyopsis formosica Broth. ex Sak., Bot. Mag. (Tokyo) 48: 386. 1934. Type. China: Taiwan, Tai-chiu, Horigai, Sasaoka 1709. Merceyopsis sikkimensis (C. Müll.) Broth. & Dix., J. Bot., 48: 301, f. 7. 1910. Scopelophila sikkimensis C. Müll. in Ren. & Card., Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belgique 41(1): 53. 1905.

Weissia cataractae Mitten, J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 12: 135. 1869; Tortula williamsii E. B. Bartram