Mecodium wrightii in British Columbia and Alaska

Abstract

Almost as a footnote the following appears in the Bryologist for 1958: this hyperoceanic region (Queen Charlotte Islands) I collected, in one locality, the fern Mecodium wrightii (v.d. Bosch) Copeland known before from Japan, Korea and Saghalin, and the first representative of the Hymenophyllaceae ever found in western North America (Persson, 1958). Iwatsuki (1961) confirms this identification and briefly discusses the general habitat and distribution of the species. Specimens of Mecodium wrightii collected by my bryological colleague, Dr. W. B. Schofield, are the basis for the following notes and observations. The sporophyte of this fern has been collected several times at Dawson Inlet, Graham Island, and in the summer of 1966 Dr. Schofield collected abundant fruiting material at the head of Van Inlet, which is the next large inlet north of Dawson Inlet (Plate 1B). In 1961 Schofield (1962) collected a puzzling hepatic-like plant that was growing freely on wet cliffs on the mainland about 100 miles northeast of Dawson Inlet. Careful study of his material (Schofield 13945) satisfied him that it was not a bryophyte, but was more likely a hymenophyllaceous gametophyte. In 1965 an ample collection of similar material was made on Biorka Island, Alaska, by Dr. A. Mathieson. This plant is now known from seven different localities. Despite the different seasons of collection the plants are remarkably uniform in morphology; all are surely the same kind of plant. The thallus is consistently one cell thick with no differences in cell shape except for those of the margin that may develop into rhizoids. It is