2. Tayloria Hooker, J. Sci. Arts (London). 2(3): 144. 1816. • [For Thomas Taylor, 1775-1848, British bryologist and coauthor of the Muscologia Britannica].
Hookeria Schwagrichen, Sp. Musc. Frond. Suppl. 1(2): 340, plate 100. 1816, not Smith 1808
Plants in loose or dense tufts, green, yellowish, or sometimes brownish. Stems 0.5-3(-6) cm; sparsely to strongly radiculose. Stem leaves oblong-lanceolate to obovate; margins toothed to entire; apex obtuse, blunt, acute, or acuminate; costa ending well before apex to excurrent; proximal laminal cells long; distal cells oblong-hexagonal. Sexual condition autoicous, often dioicous, rarely synoicous. Seta 0.6-4 cm, flexuose or twisted. Capsule not cleistocarpous, brown, ovoid, oblong-cylindric, pyriform, or conic; hypophysis usually same color as urn, short to elongate, narrower than or occasionally as wide as urn; annulus present, not strongly differentiated; operculum flat, convex, conic, or hemispheric; peristome inserted at or below mouth; prostome absent (present in T. lingulata); exostome teeth 8 or 16, sometimes connate in pairs, rarely split, erect or reflexed, of 2 layers of cells. Calyptra mitrate, short, constricted at base. Spores 9-48 µm, smooth, slightly roughened, or papillose.
Species 45 (6 in the flora): nearly worldwide; tropical to subarctic regions.
Tayloria is the only genus of the family to include both anemophilous and entomophilous taxa; it is also the most polymorphic morphologically. All North American species of Tayloria are anemophilous and none are coprophilous, although the plants often grow on nutrient-enriched substrates. The hypophysis of sporophytes of Tayloria is usually tapered and constricted when dry; the stem leaves are erect to wide-spreading and imbricate to somewhat contorted when dry; and the capsules are erect to suberect or slightly asymmetric.
SELECTED REFERENCE LaFarge-England, C. and D. H. Vitt. 1985. A taxonomic study of Tayloria hornschuchii and T. froelichiana in North America. Bryologist 88: 82-93.
