''Mossia'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of ...

s belonging to the family

Aizoaceae The Aizoaceae, or fig-marigold family, is a large family of dicotyledonous flowering plants containing 135 genera and about 1800 species. They are commonly known as ice plants or carpet weeds. They are often called vygies in South Africa and New ...

. It only contains one known species, ''Mossia intervallaris''. Its native range is

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked as an enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest mountains in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a populatio ...

and South Africa and it is found in the

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

of the Cape Provinces, Free State and the Northern Provinces. It is listed as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...

on the Red List of South African Plants. The genus name of ''Mossia'' is in honour of

Charles Edward Moss Charles Edward Moss (February 7, 1870 Hyde, Cheshire – November 11, 1930 Johannesburg), was an English-born South African botanist, the youngest son of a nonconformist minister, and is noted for being the editor of the first two parts of ''The ...

(1870–1930), an English-born South African botanist, the youngest son of a nonconformist minister, and is noted for being the editor of the first two parts of ''The Cambridge British Flora'' published in 1914 and 1920. The Latin

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of ''intervallaris'' refers to unusually long internodes (portion of a stem between two

nodes In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics *Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, ...

).Heidrun E.K. Hartmann (editor) Both the genus and species were first described and published in Gard. Chron., series 3, Vol.87 on page 71 in 1930.

References

Other sources

* Hall, A.V., De Winter, M., De Winter, B. and Van Oosterhout, S.A.M. 1980. Threatened plants of southern Africa. South African National Scienctific Programmes Report 45. CSIR, Pretoria. * Hilton-Taylor, C. 1996. Red data list of southern African plants. Strelitzia 4. South African National Botanical Institute, Pretoria. * Pfab, M.F. and Victor, J.E. 2002. Threatened plants of Gauteng, South Africa. South African Journal of Botany 68:370-375. * Raimondo, D., von Staden, L., Foden, W., Victor, J.E., Helme, N.A., Turner, R.C., Kamundi, D.A. and Manyama, P.A. 2009. Red List of South African Plants. Strelitzia 25. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. {{Taxonbar, from1=Q2840941, from2=Q15611309 Aizoaceae Aizoaceae genera Plants described in 1930 Flora of Lesotho Flora of South Africa Taxa named by N. E. Brown Monotypic Caryophyllales genera