Macrocoma tenuis subsp. tenuis
Autoicous. Asexual reproduction rarely by axillary bulbils (not seen in Victoria). Mats on trees, olive-brown, 5–15 mm tall. Stems irregularly to subpinnately branched with erect-ascending branches, red-brown, glabrous. Leaves erect-spreading when moist, erect-imbricate when dry, lanceolate, 0.6–1 mm long, 0.2–0.35 mm wide, concave or carinate in base; apex bluntly acute to obtuse, often incurved; costa ending before apex; margin entire, plane or slightly recurved, without a border; laminal cells in apical half eliptic or rounded-quadrate, isodiametric, 6–12 μm long, 5–10 μm wide, smooth; basal laminal cells becoming gradually more elongate adjacent to costa, to 25 μm long, 3.5–5 μm wide near costa, convex or mammillose. Seta 3–10 mm long, yellowish brown or reddish brown, smooth, straight or twisted right. Capsules erect, narrowly elliptic to cylindric, 1.2–2.5 mm long, yellowish brown, straight, becoming deeply grooved. Peristome rudimentary; exostome reduced to a membrane; endostome a low hyaline papillose membrane. Operculum rostrate from conic base, 0.4–1 mm long.
VVP, GipP, OtP, CVU, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, HNF, OtR, Strz, HFE, VAlp. New Zealand, Madagascar, sub-Saharan Africa and Kerguelen Island. Mostly in the Otways, Dandenongs and Yarra Ranges, Strzelecki Ranges and East Gippsland, usually at the margins of rainforest in wet sclerophyll forest or in riparian forest, often on Acacia or Pomaderris.
The species epithet is often spelt tenue, however, Macrocoma is feminine and not neuter and so tenuis is the correct spelling when the correct gender agreement is followed (Eckel 2000).
Bednarek-Ochyra, H.; Plasek, V.; Guo, S.-L. (2018). A brief survey of bryological studies in the Subantarctic, including Macrocoma tenue (Orthotrichaceae), a moss genus and species newly found in Îles Kerguelen. Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae 87(4): 3597.
Eckel, P.M. (2000). The gender of Macrocoma Grout is feminine, not neuter. Journal of Bryology 22: 72–73.
Fife, A.J. (2017). Orthotrichaceae, in Breitwieser, I. & Wilton, A.D. (eds), Flora of New Zealand – Mosses. Fascicle 31. Manaaki Whenua Press, Lincoln.
Vitt, D.H.; Ramsay, H.P. (2006). Macrocoma. Flora of Australia 51: 190–191.
