670 Britton: West Indian mosses 



Palamocladium trichophyllum C. Miill. Flora 82: 465. 1896. 

 Palamocladium trichophyllum subtile C. Miill. Hedwigia 37: 240. 



1898. 

 Orthothecium trichophyllum Fleisch. Fl. Buit. 3: 667. 1906. 



Plants light yellowish green, glossy; stems rooting and creeping, 

 with simple erect branches, often 2 cm. high and prolonged into 

 slender flagellate branchlets bearing brown septate gemmae in 

 clusters in the axils of the upper leaves; branch-leaves crowded, 

 spreading, glossy, strongly plicate when dry, lanceolate-acuminate, 

 3-5 mm. long, ecostate, margins plane, serrate; cells linear, walls 

 porose, slightly thickened, alar cells shorter and broader, curved, 

 forming a small, serrate auricle. Autoicous, perichaetial leaves 

 shorter, paler, more suddenly subulate, more sharply serrate. 

 Seta erect, straight or flexuose, red, 15-25 mm. long; calyptra 

 cucullate; capsule erect, ovoid-cylindric, sometimes contracted 

 below the mouth when dry, 2-3 mm. long, lid rostrate; annulus 

 none; walls with irregular square or hexagonal cells 27-54 M long 

 X 27/i wide; neck short, stomatose; peristome double; teeth 

 incurved, brown, narrow, not perforate, papillose, with slightly 

 trabeculate lamellae ; endostome paler, also papillose with a short 

 basal membrane and rudimentary or imperfect cilia, segments 

 shorter than the teeth, not split along the keel; spores green, 

 minutely papillose, unequal in size, 5/i-i6ju, maturing in winter. 



Forming bright glossy mats in shade on trunks and roots of 

 tree-ferns and palms on high mountains, rarely on rocks. Fruit 

 rare! 



Habitat and type locality: "On bark and trunks of old 

 trees, Jamaica." 



Distribution- Jamaica, Cuba, Porto Rico, Haiti, Santo 

 Domingo, St. Kitts, Dominica, Martinique. Guadeloupe, St. 

 Vincent, Montserrat, and Trinidad to Venezuela. 



Illustrations: Hedw. Sp. Muse. pi. 71; E. & P. Nat. Pfl. 

 I': 773-f-5SoJ-L. 



Exsiccatae: Husnot, PI. Ant. Fr. 183., as Meteorium sericeum 

 Sch. 



On account of the rarity of its fruit this species has been placed 

 in a variety of genera none of which seem to me to be correct. 

 Its double peristome and different habit remove it from Lepyrodon 

 and its tropical distribution from Orthothecium, the species of 

 which are alpine or arctic and subarctic. Its relationship however 

 seems to me to be more with the Entodontaceae, where Fleischer 



