Buxbaumia

Green Goblin Moss ( Buxbaumia viridis)

The Kobold Moose ( Buxbaumia ) are a genus akrokarper Moose that stands alone in the subclass Buxbaumiidae and includes approximately twelve types.

Due to some very different from other groups moss specific traits of the systematic position of the genus was long time unclear, today they are considered as a separate subclass within the Bryopsida.

Name

The Latin name honors the German botanist Johann Christian Buxbaum. The German name goblin moss derives probably from the leprechaun hat -like sporophyte.

Description

The Kobold Moose are a highly derived and specialized group. Characteristic of all mosses of the family is the highly reduced gametophyte, which is stängellos and only consists of a rosette of leaves. In many species the leaves are reduced and tiny, or even missing almost completely. In the latter case, the sporophyte is nourished by the protonema.

The sporophyte is large in comparison. It can be both sitting long stalks, but is always asymmetric blow - up egg-shaped. The double row peristome consists of 16 or 32 teeth. The teeth are made as at the Bryidae of cell walls - not from whole cells - so-called arthrodonte teeth. but they are much reduced form, and consist only of cell debris or thickened cell walls, and have no function in the dissemination of spores more. The distribution of the spores is similar at the air-filled capsules like a bellows.

System

Due to the arthrodonten teeth Kobold Moose were asked earlier to the Bryidae. Molecular biological studies have shown, however, that this feature must be arisen independently in the two groups and they are not more closely related to each other. Due to the low number of species and the highly derived characteristics is believed that it is the remains once is richer moss species groups in the family. However Fossil Goblin Moose are not known.

The family consists of a globally distributed genus:

• Buxbaumia with 12 species are annuals and grow on rotten wood or soil. The female gametophyte consist of approximately one millimeter leaf rosette, the male are microscopic and consist of the protonema seated sheet with encapsulated antheridium. In Germany only Buxbaumia aphylla and
• Buxbaumia viridis

Swell

• Urania plant kingdom. Volume 2: mosses, ferns, gymnosperms, 1st Edition 1992, Urania -Verlag, Leipzig, 1992, ISBN 3-332-00495-6
• Jan- Peter Frahm: biology of mosses. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg and Berlin, 2001, ISBN 3-8274-0164- X
• Jan- Peter Frahm, Wolfgang Frey: moss flora. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8001-2463-7
• A Checklist of the Mosses of Chile
• Bryologist, Vol 82, No. 4 ( Winter, 1979), pp. 638-641