Frullania kitagawana S.Hatt.

Thouvenot, Louis & Müller, Frank, 2021, Contribution to the bryophyte flora of New Caledonia IV. Species new to the country, new localities together with taxonomic notes, Cryptogamie, Bryologie 20 (13), pp. 181-196 : 183

Frullania kitagawana S.Hatt.

SPECIMEN EXAMINED. — New Caledonia. North Province, Poum, south of mount Arama, 20°16’38”S, 164°11’33”E, on small branches in a thicket of Melaleuca quinquinervia (Cav.) S.T.Blake and Acacia spirorbis Labill. , 391 m, 13.IX.2019, Thouvenot NC2985.

COMMENTS

This endemic species was only known from the type collection in South Province (Dogny) ( Hattori 1984). This plant is distinguished by the reddish-brown colour, no differentiation of small-leaved pinnate branches, the lobules galeate, with beak confluent to the ventral margin of the lobe, free margin infolded, hidden in the lobule, the underleaves widely rounded reniform, flat, with an apex shortly incised and margins entire, the lobes rounded, entire, inflexed. The new specimen matches all the characters of the type described by Hattori (1984) and extends its distribution to North Province where it grows as an epiphyte in a dry thicket on metamorphic mountains at low elevation, a sunny and very harsh environment.