Plagiochila deflexa Mont. & Gottsche

Annales des Sciences Naturelles; Botanique, série 4, 6: 192 (1856).

Plagiochila saxicola Steph., Bulletin de l’Herbier Boissier, sér. 2, 5: 886 (1905), nom. illeg. (non [Schrad.] Nees); Stephani, Icones Ineditae 11361, 11362. — Type: Guadeloupe, l’Herminier s.n. (lecto-, designated here, G[G00113020!], c. gyn. & andr.; syn-, Duss 317, G[G00113022!], Duss 453, G[G00113021!]), syn. nov.

Remarks

Plagiochila deflexa is a neotropical-Hawaiian disjunctive species that is known in the Neotropics from Cuba, Central America and the northern Andes (Heinrichs et al. 2002; Gradstein in press); it had not yet been recorded from the Lesser Antilles. The species is recognized by the medium-sized plants (c. 3-5 mm wide) with exclusively intercalary branching, ovateoblong to elongate-triangular, ventrad leaves with a rather narrow apex, an ampliate ventral base, rather few (c. 15-20)

triangular teeth along the leaf margins, leaf cells c. 25-35 µm wide in midleaf and with large trigones, and leaf base with a conspicuous vitta-like area of larger cells. The species may be confused with P. adianthoides (Sw.) Lindenb. but the latter species lacks a vitta, the leaf margin in P. adianthoides is usually bordered by thicker-walled cells (forming a yellowish border), the marginal teeth are more numerous (20-50 per leaf) and more linear in shape, the trigones are smaller and the leaf apex is more broadly rounded.