Notes on Early Land Plants Today^*. 92. Lejeunea trinitensis var. varians (Herzog) comb. nov.

Abstract

Cheilolejeunea pililoba (Spruce) A. Evans f. varians Herzog was described in 1951 (Herzog 1951) and transferred to Rectolejeunea pililoba (Spruce) R. M. Schust. var. varians (Herzog) R. M. Schust. (Schuster 1980) with just a short description of the differences with var. pililoba as the reasons to elevate the forma to variety status. Cheilolejeunea pililoba was synonymized with Lejeunea trinitensis Lindenb. by Grolle (1981) but the variety was not mentioned. Reiner-Drehwald and Grolle (2012) accepted the synonymy but treated the variety as a doubtful name as they did not see the type. However, type material exists in Herbarium Haussknecht (JE), and possibly at other places as the collector, P. C. Standley, was stationed in Smithsonian Institute (US) at that time and often distributed duplicates to other herbaria. Thus, Söderström and Hentschel (2023) formally selected the JE specimen as lectotype.

The lectotype is close to Lejeunea trinitensis s. str. but differs in some aspects, as described by Herzog (1951). The lobules are reduced, the underleaves are enlarged but with a reduction of the their lobes and only androecia were seen. According to Herzog (1951) it is not clear whether this represents only a suppression of the female gametangia or not. Lejeunea trinitensis s.str. is strictly autoicous with typical lobules. With those differences we think it may be worth to recognize this taxon as a variety of Lejeunea trinitensis pending further studies of this species.