Tayloria Hook.

Plants medium-sized to robust, erect, pale or bright-green, often with secondary pigmentation, forming dense or loose tufts, usually on decaying organic matter. Stems not or sparsely branched, commonly to c. 40 mm (rarely more), in cross-section with 1–2 layers of cortical cells and a central strand, densely beset with smooth or papillose, brown or ± purple rhizoids. Leaves increasing in size and more crowded at stem apex, obovate, elliptic, or lingulate, wide- or erect-spreading, crisped when dry, entire, toothed, or spinose, variable in apical form, often narrower in male plants; upper laminal cells relatively large, smooth, oblong-hexagonal, becoming larger and more oblong towards leaf base, not or weakly differentiated near margins; alar cells not differentiated. Costa ending below the apex to long excurrent. Axillary hairs filamentous, the distal two cells often golden, cylindric, with each cell c. 90–120 µm.

Dioicous in N.Z. species. Perichaetial leaves ± larger and weakly comose, not otherwise differentiated. Perigonia terminal (but sometimes overtopped by innovations), with widely-spreading or erect bracts, many antheridia and filiform paraphyses. Setae elongate (or rarely very short in non-N.Z. species), straight or flexuous, mostly smooth, scarcely twisted, in cross-section with 2–5 cortical layers and a central strand; capsules erect or nearly so, variable in shape but often cylindric or obovoid, with a weakly or well-defined neck that is either as wide as the urn or sometimes greatly expanded to form an enlarged hypophysis, variably pigmented, the urn often contracted when dry; columella sometimes protruding beyond the mouth when mature and dry; stomata present in neck, superficial and 2-celled, sometimes few; annulus weakly differentiated, falling with the operculum; operculum bluntly conic. Peristome single, variably inserted, with 16 teeth, in N.Z. species paired and fused to form 8 broadly triangular and compound teeth, variably pigmented and ornamented; preperistome sometimes present. Calyptra mitrate, smooth above, fimbriate and constricted at base in N.Z. species. Spores small, spherical, smooth or finely ornamented.

Tayloria is a genus of approximately 40 species; it has a worldwide distribution with modest concentrations in the Andes and eastern Asia. If the high altitude neotropical species are segregated into their own genus (Brachymitrion), as is sometimes done, the genus is confined to the cooler parts of the northern and southern hemispheres. Four species are documented from N.Z.

The four species occurring in N.Z. were placed in the subgenus Eremodon by Brotherus (1924), with the subgenus exhibiting an exclusively austral (southern South America and Australasia) distribution. According to Brotherus, this subgenus is characterised by often dioicous sexuality, costae mostly ending below the leaf apex, non-protruding columellae, smooth calyptrae, and short, paired, and fused peristome teeth which are usually reflexed when dry. There are, however, some discrepancies between Australasian species and Brotherus’ subgeneric concept.

In light of these inconsistencies, A. Koponen (1977; 1978) proposed a new subgenus, Pseudotetraplodon, based largely on peristome and other sporophyte characters. Tayloria octoblepharum, a species with reflexed peristome teeth, was selected as the type of the subgenus, in which she placed seven other species (including T. tasmanica) with distributions in the Andes, southern South America, Australasia, New Guinea, and the Celebes. Because the intra-generic classification of Tayloria and the Splachnaceae as a whole remains in flux (cf. Goffinet & Shaw 2002), no infrageneric groupings are adopted here.

Three of the four N.Z. species have smooth rather than papillose rhizoids (viewed under the optical microscope); this conflicts with the observations of Goffinet (2006) and the generic description of Brotherus (1924).