Grimmia

Grimmia is a genus of mosses (Bryophyta), originally named by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart in honour of Johann Friedrich Carl Grimm, a physician and botanist from Gotha, Germany.
Geographic distribution
Although predominantly occurring in the moderate zones, representatives of the cosmopolitan genus Grimmia may be found in all parts of the world, from Alaska to the most southern point of Chile, and from Siberia to South Africa, though in tropic regions, e.g. Hawaii and Indonesia, Grimmia species only occur high up in the mountains.
Identification
Grimmia is a notoriously difficult genus in terms of identification, and in the majority of herbaria a considerable number of species was found misidentified. The American bryologist Geneva Sayre (1911–1992), who worked for many years on a monograph of the North American Grimmias, indicated in an original way these difficulties, as she said: "it contains an ambigua, a varia, a decipiens, a controversa, a revisa and at least two anomalas".
Publications
In the Index Muscorum, the genus Grimmia is represented with 800 names of published species. As since Loeske (1930), no revision of the European species had been carried out.
The Dutch bryologist H. C. Greven started in 1990 with Grimmia fieldwork and a revision of the Grimmia collections from important European herbaria. The results were published in "Grimmia Hedw. (Grimmiaceae, Musci) in Europe".
After examining the Grimmia collections from herbaria in North- and South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and about 50 Grimmia collecting trips in all continents, Grimmias of the World was published. An important contribution was the revision of Grimmia in North America.
In the past decades, some more bryologists became interested in the genus Grimmia. Jesús Muñoz published a herbaria revision of Grimmia in Latin America, and Maier studied herbarium specimens of Grimmia from the Himalaya.
Classification
The genus Grimmia contains the following species:
Grimmia abyssinica
Grimmia acuta
Grimmia afroincurva
Grimmia ahmadiana
Grimmia albida
Grimmia alpestris
Grimmia alpestris
Grimmia ambigua
Grimmia amblyophylla
Grimmia americana
Grimmia andina
Grimmia angustissima
Grimmia anodon
Grimmia anomala
Grimmia antipodum
Grimmia aquatica
Grimmia arctica
Grimmia arcuata
Grimmia arenaria
Grimmia argyrotricha
Grimmia arizonae
Grimmia atrata
Grimmia attenuata
Grimmia australis
Grimmia austrofunalis
Grimmia austroleucophaea
Grimmia basaltica
Grimmia bicolor
Grimmia boliviana
Grimmia boschbergiana
Grimmia brachydictyon
Grimmia brachypus
Grimmia breviseta
Grimmia brittoniae
Grimmia browniana
Grimmia brownii
Grimmia caespiticia
Grimmia caffra
Grimmia calcarea
Grimmia calycina
Grimmia camonia
Grimmia campylotricha
Grimmia canariensis
Grimmia capillata
Grimmia chocayae
Grimmia chrysoneura
Grimmia chubutensis
Grimmia churchilliana
Grimmia cirrata
Grimmia coarctata
Grimmia compactula
Grimmia controversa
Grimmia crassifolia
Grimmia crassinervia
Grimmia cratericola
Grimmia crinita
Grimmia crinitoleucophaea
Grimmia crispata
Grimmia crispipila
Grimmia crispula
Grimmia cucullata
Grimmia cucullatifolia
Grimmia cupularis
Grimmia curviseta
Grimmia cyathocarpa
Grimmia cylindropyxis
Grimmia daviesii
Grimmia decipiens
Grimmia defoliata
Grimmia depilis
Grimmia dissimulata
Grimmia donniana
Grimmia elatior
Grimmia elongata
Grimmia erythraea
Grimmia exquisita
Grimmia falcata
Grimmia fallax
Grimmia fascicularis
Grimmia filiformis
Grimmia fontana
Grimmia fontinaloides
Grimmia forsteri
Grimmia fulgens
Grimmia funalis
Grimmia fusca
Grimmia fuscescens
Grimmia fuscolutea
Grimmia gebhardii
Grimmia gigantea
Grimmia gracilis
Grimmia hamulosa
Grimmia handelii
Grimmia hartmanii
Grimmia herzogii
Grimmia heteromalla
Grimmia homomalla
Grimmia horrida
Grimmia humilis
Grimmia immergens
Grimmia immersoleucophaea
Grimmia inclinata
Grimmia incrassicapsulis
Grimmia incurva
Grimmia indica
Grimmia involucrata
Grimmia jan-mayensis
Grimmia japonica
Grimmia julacea
Grimmia kansuana
Grimmia khasiana
Grimmia kidderi
Grimmia laevidens
Grimmia laevigata
Grimmia lamprocarpa
Grimmia lanceolata
Grimmia lanuginosa
Grimmia lawiana
Grimmia leibergii
Grimmia lesherae
Grimmia limbatula
Grimmia linearis
Grimmia lisae
Grimmia longicaulis
Grimmia longirostris
Grimmia macroperichaetialis
Grimmia macrotheca
Grimmia macrotyla
Grimmia madagassa
Grimmia mairei
Grimmia malacophylla
Grimmia mammosa
Grimmia mariniana
Grimmia mauiensis
Grimmia maunakeaensis
Grimmia meridionalis
Grimmia mexicana
Grimmia microcarpa
Grimmia microglobosa
Grimmia microodonta
Grimmia milleri
Grimmia minuta
Grimmia mixta
Grimmia molesta
Grimmia mollis
Grimmia montana
Grimmia moxleyi
Grimmia muehlenbeckii
Grimmia muelleri
Grimmia mutica
Grimmia navicularis
Grimmia neilgiriensis
Grimmia nepalensis
Grimmia nevadensis
Grimmia nigrescens
Grimmia nigrita
Grimmia nivalis
Grimmia novae-zeelandiae
Grimmia nuda
Grimmia nutans
Grimmia obtusata
Grimmia obtusolinealis
Grimmia ochracea
Grimmia ochyriana
Grimmia olivacea
Grimmia olneyi
Grimmia oranica
Grimmia orbicularis
Grimmia orthotrichacea
Grimmia ovalis
Grimmia pachyloma
Grimmia pachyphylla
Grimmia paramattensis
Grimmia patagonica
Grimmia percarinata
Grimmia perichaetialis
Grimmia pflanzii
Grimmia pilifera
Grimmia pilosissima
Grimmia pitardii
Grimmia plagiopodia
Grimmia pomiformis
Grimmia praemorsa
Grimmia procumbens
Grimmia protensum
Grimmia pseudoanodon
Grimmia pseudopatens
Grimmia pulla
Grimmia pulvinata
Grimmia pulvinatula
Grimmia pusilla
Grimmia pycnotricha
Grimmia pygmaea
Grimmia ramondii
Grimmia ramulosa
Grimmia readeri
Grimmia recurvirostris
Grimmia reflexidens
Grimmia retracta
Grimmia richardii
Grimmia rigidissima
Grimmia robustifolia
Grimmia rupestris
Grimmia rupincola
Grimmia saxatilis
Grimmia saxicola
Grimmia scabripes
Grimmia schleicheri
Grimmia sciuroides
Grimmia scouleri
Grimmia serrana
Grimmia serratomucronata
Grimmia sessitana
Grimmia shastai
Grimmia squamatula
Grimmia starckeana
Grimmia stenobasis
Grimmia stenophylla
Grimmia stirlingii
Grimmia stolonifera
Grimmia streptophylla
Grimmia subcallosa
Grimmia subconferta
Grimmia subleucophaea
Grimmia subpraemorsa
Grimmia subsecunda
Grimmia subtergestina
Grimmia sulcipila
Grimmia sundaica
Grimmia syntrichiacea
Grimmia tasmanica
Grimmia teretinervis
Grimmia tergestina
Grimmia tergestina
Grimmia texicana
Grimmia torenii
Grimmia torquata
Grimmia torreyana
Grimmia tortuosa
Grimmia trichodes
Grimmia trichophylla
Grimmia triformis
Grimmia trinervis
Grimmia tristicha
Grimmia tristichoides
Grimmia truncatoapocarpa
Grimmia tunariensis
Grimmia ungeri
Grimmia unicolor
Grimmia urceolaris
Grimmia urnulacea
Grimmia vaginulata
Grimmia verticillata
Grimmia verticillatula
Grimmia vulcanica
Grimmia williamsii
Grimmia wilsonii
Grimmia wrightii
Grimmia yaulensis
Latest discovered species
In the past 15 years (1996 to 2010), the following Grimmia species have been discovered and described:
Grimmia maido (Greven 1996)
Grimmia macroperichaetialis (Greven 1998)
Grimmia ochyriana (Muñoz 1998)
Grimmia wilsonii (Greven 1998)
Grimmia mexicana (Greven 1999)
Grimmia molesta (Muñoz 1999)
Grimmia indica (Goffinet & Greven 2000)
Grimmia dissimulata (Maier 2002b)
Grimmia nevadensis (Greven 2002)
Grimmia serrana (Muñoz, Shevock & Toren 2002)
Grimmia lesherae (Greven 2003)
Grimmia mauiensis (Greven 2003)
Grimmia maunakeaensis (Greven 2003)
Grimmia shastae (Greven 2003)
Grimmia milleri (Hastings & Greven 2007)
Grimmia torenii (Hastings 2008)
Grimmia texicana (Greven 2010)
References
Maier, E. 2009). Grimmia in Europa. Ein Bestimmungsschlüssel. Herzogia 22: 229-302.
Maier, E. (2010). The Genus Grimmia Hedw. (Grimmiaceae, Bryophyta): A Morphological-anatomical Study. Boissiera 63: 3-377
External links
Grimmias of the World Online reference guide, including more than 2000 macro- and microscopic photos of all 96 recognised Grimmia species. Additionally, the website includes a Worldchecklist, table of World distribution, European checklist and major ecological and morphological characters of the Grimmia species.
Moss genera
Grimmiales
Taxa named by Johann Hedwig