| Summary: | A study of the variable species Oxyrrhynchium hians s.l. in NW Europe based on nuclear ITS, and plastid rpl 16 and trn L‑ trn F, as well as morphology, revealed unsuspected species level diversity. Three taxa are distinguishable by morphology: O. distichum with complanate or sub-complanate branch leaves and long and narrow leaf lamina cells, O. hians with cordate or broadly ovate, concave leaves that are evenly arranged around the stems and branches, and O. swartzii with mostly complanate or sub-complanate branch leaves and compared with O. distichum relatively short and wide leaf lamina cells. In Sweden O. distichum grows almost exclusively on base-rich or calcareous rocks and has been recorded from a belt stretching from the Baltic Sea islands of Öland and Gotland to Dalarna and southernmost Norway, whereas the other two species grow on various substrates and have wider distributions. Oxyrrhynchium hians grows in more nutrient-rich habitats than O. swartzii and is therefore absent from regions with relatively poor soils. Oxyrrhynchium swartzii occurs northwards to Sør-Trøndelag in Norway and Jämtland and Medelpad in Sweden and includes two semi-cryptic species that differ slightly in size and may have relatively more western and eastern distributions, respectively, in Fennoscandia. For the molecular portion of this study, 32 specimens of O. hians s.l. from Sweden, six from Norway, and three from Switzerland were included. One specimen each of the two closely related species O. schleicheri (R. Hedw.) Röll and O. speciosum (Brid.) Warnst., two other unambiguous members of Oxyrrhynchium (Ignatov and Huttunen 2002, Ignatov and Isoviita 2003), were included as outgroup. Total DNA was extracted using the NucleoMag® Plant kit for DNA isolation from plant tissue (Macherey-Nagel) with the KingFisher Duo magnetic particle processor. Double stranded DNA templates were prepared by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR was performed using IllustraTM Hot Start Mix RTG (GE Healthcare) in a 25 µl reaction volume according to ...
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