Tayloria tasmanica (Hampe) Broth.

Plants bright green above, red-purple below, forming dense tufts. Stems unbranched or branched by innovation, to at least 25 mm, beset with dark red, papillose rhizoids. Leaves erect-spreading when moist, strongly crisped when dry, scarcely increasing in size towards stem apex, green throughout or suffused with red, ovate-lanceolate, gradually tapered to an acute or short acuminate apex, mostly reflexed at apex, plane at margins, entire, mostly c. 2.2–3.1(–3.5) × 0.5–1.3 mm (on female shoots, including excurrency; leaves of male plants smaller); upper laminal cells thin-walled, not porose, oblong-hexagonal, (27–)45–75 μm in upper third, usually shorter towards margins, not arranged in diagonal files, becoming longer and more oblong below. Costa clearly defined, c. 100 μm wide at 1/3 above leaf base, percurrent or excurrent into a cusp or short acumen. Axillary hairs conspicuous, mostly 5-celled and remaining attached to stem, pigmented, with terminal cells cylindric and mostly 75–90 μm.

Dioicous. Perichaetial leaves not differentiated. Perigonia terminal, usually overtopped by innovation, the bracts differentiated, widely spreading, lanceolate from an oblong base, c. 1.2 mm, surrounding many antheridia intermixed with filiform, 5–6-celled paraphyses. Setae 6–10 mm, straight, scabrous in lower half or more, c. 350–450 μm diam., scarcely twisted when dry, red-brown at maturity; capsules erect, with a very broad, ± globose, pale grey (both fresh and dry) hypophysis topped by a narrow, tapered and red-brown urn, c. 2.3–2.5 × 1.4–1.6 mm, with the hypophysis c. ⅔ the total capsule length; exothecial cells oblate, very thick-walled, in ill-defined ranks; hypophysis composed of pale spongy cells, the surface pale grey (both fresh and dry) in upper half or more, red-brown below; stomata and annulus not seen; columella not seen, not obviously protruding; operculum as per genus. Peristome recurved when dry, detail not seen. Calyptra not seen. Spores ± globose, c. 18 μm, smooth.

Not illustrated. Goffinet 2006, fig. 18, a–d; Seppelt et al. 2013, pl. 36.

Known in N.Z. from only a single collection made by C.D. Meurk in January 2013 (CHR 625004). The plant grew with Campylopus acuminatus var. kirkii on a boggy trackside at an elevation of c. 2 m. The substrate of the moss was quite leached sandy material on a dune or levee and no faeces or decomposed flesh was apparent. Leptospermum scoparium occurred in the immediate vicinity (C.D. Meurk, pers. comm., Feb. 2013). The Stewart I. collection is the first verified gathering of this very attractive species outside Tasmania. According to Goffinet (2006), the plant grows "on damp soil in heathland, bryophyte-dominated peatland and in alpine scrub… from sea level to about 1200 m" in Tasmania. He further stated: "It is surprising that none of the collections are reported to grow on dung or other animal remains….It is possible that lack of evidence for coprophily is an artefact due to the species only being collected when capsules are produced, which may occur long after the decomposition of the substratum." Lyn Cave (pers. comm., Feb. 2013) believes that T. tasmanica grows primarily but not exclusively on wombat dung in Tasmania.

According to Anne Gaskett (pers. comm., Feb. 2015), observations made in south-western Tasmania suggest that T. tasmanica produces odours usually associated with rotting meat or carnivore dung (dimethyl disulphide) and none of those associated with rotting vegetation/herbivore dung (indoles, cresols, and phenols), suggesting that this species might be a carnivore dung or carcass specialist.

The report of this species from Macquarie I. by Goffinet (2006) was based on a misinterpretation of an 1893 collection by L. Rodway (WELT M032030) from Macquarie Harbour in western Tasmania.

The collection data on BM 983027 (presumably the holotype as it is accompanied by Hampe’s handwritten description) states the collector to be Schaffer, rather than Schuster (as per the protologue). The detail viewable in the JSTOR [http://plants.jstor.org, accessed 3 Mar. 2015] digital photographs of this specimen is sufficient to permit assignment of the type specimen to the modern concept of Tayloria tasmanica (Hampe) Broth. Goffinet (2006) tentatively and reasonably interpreted the locality data to mean "mountain towards L.[ake] Pedder".