North American Pacific Northwest Research Articles

Brachydontium notorogenes is described from Parque Nacional do Itatiaia in south- eastern Brazil. It is distinguished from all other species in the genus by the combination of long- subulate leaves and eperistomate capsules. Brachydontium is a genus of small acrocarpous mosses with mitrate calyptrae, large annuli, and mostly plicate capsules. It differs from the confamil- ial Seligeria by just these characters, and usually by truncate peristome teeth. Plants of both genera have small smooth leaf cells, mostly flexuose setae with erect capsules, and haplolepideous peristomes. The previously described species of Brachydontium are the circum-North Temperate B. trichodes (Weber) Milde, B. flexisetum (Hampe) Paris from Andean Colombia (and more recently reported from Rwan- da, De Sloover 1973), B. intermedium Stone from southeastern Australia, B. curvisetum Crum from Mexico, B. olsonii Bowers & Allen from Honduras, and B. olympicum (Britton) McIntosh & Spence from the North American Pacific Northwest (Oregon to Alaska) and Japan. All but the last of these species are peristomate. Therefore, when another eperis- tomate species of Brachydontium was recently dis- covered in southeastern Brazil, it was relatively sim- ple to establish that it was undescribed.

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