2000 年 89 巻 p. 71-92
So far morphological approaches have produced little consensus in formulating clear definitions of the mostly southern hemispheric Lembophyllaceae and Meteoriaceae, two pleurocarpous and mainly epiphytic moss families. The generic limits proposed by various authors have resulted in an overlap of family concepts, and the systematic position of genera such as Weymouthia and Pilotrichella has been unsettled since the description of these families by Brotherus (1907) and Kindberg (1897). A molecular approach based on sequence data of two noncoding regions of the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA), trnLUAA intron and trnLUAA 3'exon-trnFGAA intergenic spacer (trn data) as well as sequence data of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) provides new evidence supporting the transfer of the genus Weymouthia into the Lembophyllaceae. Although the inter- and intrageneric sequence divergence is extremely low, the highly congruent maximally parsimonious trees from trn and ITS2 data sets suggest a close relationship of the Lembophyllaceae taxa sensu Tangney (1997 b). The Lembophyllaceae as treated here contain five genera Camptochaete, Lembophyllum, Fifea, Fallaciella and Weymouthia. Within the Meteoriaceae Meteorium and Papillaria are retained as separate genera, while Weymouthia is excluded from the Meteoriaceae and transferred to the Lembophyllaceae. The molecular data does not align Pilotrichella with either the Meteoriaceae or the Lembophyllaceae sampled. A transfer of Pilotrichella into the Lembophyllaceae is not supported. Pulchrinodus inflatus is neither part of the genus Weymouthia nor of the Meteoriaceae or Lembophyllaceae.
