B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 32. 2001 (Budapest, 2001)

Erzberger, Peter: Ditrichum crispatissimum (Muell. Hal.) Paris, a new species of the Hungarian bryoflora, and Ditrichum flexicaule (Schleich. ex Schwaegr.) Hampe in Hungary

ever, a number of shortcomings in the definitions of his characters make it difficult, or even impossible, to apply these results in further studies. To illustrate this, the characters examined by Novotny will be discussed in detail: 1. "hyacel" = "absolute number of hyaline cells at the edge of leaf base" According to FRISVOLL (1985), D. crispatissimum has (1)2-4 rows of narrow, elongate and frequently pseudohyaline cells in the marginal border of the sheathing leaf base, whereas D. flexicaule has (0)1-2 such rows; the border is usually distinctly marked towards the inner lamina cells in D. flexicaule, but less marked in D. crispatissimum. It is therefore hard to conceive how "hyacel" can be estimated with any accuracy in D. crispatissimum. One could speculate that "hyacel" might refer to the number of hyaline cell rows. 2. "curvat" = "curvature of cell wall at leaf base near costa" Novotny here seems to merge two different features into one. (i) Cells in the middle of the sheathing leaf base differ in shape between the taxa: they are isodiametric or shortly rectangular with straight to slightly curved walls in D. flexicaule, and usually elongate with curved walls in D. crispatissimum. (ii) Cells at the base along the costa are elongate, eporose or sometimes indistinctly porose in D. flexicaule, and longer and porose in D. crispatissimum. From the categories ("straight, intermediate, curved") used to scale "curvat" it seems that Novotny is referring to the first feature (i), unless he means porosity of cell walls, which results in cell walls being "curved" in some sense as well. 3. "leafle" = "absolute length of leaf in mm" 4. "awlnes" = "awlness [?] of leaf To judge from the categories ("not awl-shaped, intermediate, awl-shaped") used to scale "awlnes" Novotny seems to be referring to leaf shape, with leaf base rather suddenly narrowed into a comparatively short subula in D. flexicaule, and lamina more gradually tapering towards a comparatively long subula in D. crispatissimum

. 5. "shorte" = "length ratio of cells on costa/cells on leaf edge in its awl-shaped part" The "awl-shaped part" obviously refers to the sheathing part of the lamina. Novotny does not state more precisely at which part of the leaf length of costa cells is studied. His illustrations - rather schematic representations of this feature - do not elucidate this point either. 6. "tootne" = "denticulation of leaf tip" 7. "tippbre" = "absolute breadth of tip at a distance of 35 pm" This is an interesting character not mentioned by Frisvoll, related to usually longer and narrower subulae in D. crispatissimum.