Allan Herbarium

CHR 641834

Packet

31 October 2016

18 June 2022

Dicranoloma robustum (Hook.f. & Wilson) Paris

Allan Fife

Dicranoloma robustum (Hook.f. & Wilson) Paris

Bryophyta

Bryatae

Dicranaceae

Determination

Field

Mount Arthur Plateau, Wharepapa / Arthur Range, Kahurangi National Park

Latitude and Longitude (WGS84):  -41.2153  172.684 

Mt Arthur Plateau

[Cheeseman, TF]

Thomas F. Cheeseman

New Zealand

Nelson Land District

Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō

Ngāti Kōata

Ngāti Kuia

Ngāti Rārua

Ngāti Tama ki Te Tau Ihu

Ngāti Toa Rangatira

Te Atiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui

Latitude and Longitude (WGS84):  -41.132  172.723 

On earth

[Herb. W. Martin] 162.2

Certain type material of Dicranoloma grossialare is difficult to locate, despite Dixon’s (1913, p. 19) clear citation of a holotype: “Nova Seelandia insula meridionalis, Mount Arthur Plateau, Nelson, alt. 4,000 ft., 1889, misit T.F. Cheeseman, No 66 (sub nomine “Dicranum robustum H.f. & W. ?’), ex herb. Levier. Type in Herb. C. Müll. In Mus. Bot. Berolin.” The holotype was presumably destroyed in the WW2 bombing of the Berlin herbarium. A request to borrow material form BM-Dixon was unsuccessful, suggesting that no type material occurs there. There are two fruiting Mt. Arthur specimens in the Cheesmean herbarium (AK 12159, AK 12161) under the name Dicranoloma grossialare, both originally named as Dicranum robustum and later revised by Sainsbury. Neither are dated; one bears the poorly legible Cheesman number 68 (168?). Neither of these specimens fully agrees with the collection details in Dixon’s protologue and there is no evidence that either Müller of Dixon examined either. There is a specimen in CHR-Martin which was probably segregated from one of the above. The habit and associated species present in these three specimens suggest that they may be duplicates of a single collection. A duplicate of Cheeseman 66, if located (and assuming that the number cited by Dixon is not an error) would be a suitable lectotype for D. grossialare Dixon. The following observations and related taxonomic conclusions conform the Cheesman 68 (AK 12159), which is unremarkable in the variational context of D. robustum. The penicillate nature of the upper leaves, referred to both in the protologue and by Sainsbury (1955a, p. 133) is here only weakly developed. The leaves are c. 15 mm long, tubulose, and finely subulate in a manner suggestive of the setosum from of D. robustum. The upper laminal cells are mostly 45-60 (-90) × 6-8 µm, thick-walled, and porose. The costa at mid leaf is c. 90-100µm, with 7 median guide cells, and with well defined two-layered stereid bands and larger-lumened abaxial cells (toxoneuron). The tubulose nature of the leaves obscures the costa in some leaves, and this may have influenced Dixon’s of the costa as “basin versus tenuis, saepe indistincta.” In sectioned leaves, however, the costa in the lower leaf is generally c. 100 µm. The supposed indistinct nature of the lower costa is emphasized as a diagnostic feature of by Sainsbury (1955a. p. 132).
[Fife AJ]

presumably leg. Cheeseman
Allan Fife, August 2000

Type? of Dicranoloma grossialare Dixon, Bull. New Zealand Inst. 3(1): 18 (1913)