save the Blue Tier
tasmanian liverworts - cephaloziellaceae
101101A - Cephaloziella hirta?
1. leaf
Notes
Minute leafy liverwort discovered growing on vertical surface provided by soil on base of uprooted tree in shaded wet scerphyll forest; growing proximate to a large population of fertile Mittenia plumaria. It was difficult to determine if the plant had underleaves because of extraneous material adhering to the plants as well as profusion of hyaline rhizoids on the ventral side of stem.
Leaves spread away from stem but leaf tip is aligned towards growing point (pix 2); leaf attachment is incubous to transverse; terminal perianths were present on many shoots. There were 1-4 small oil bodies on the perianth, largest being around 5µm, appearing to be homogeneous and spherical (pix 4).
Leaves are bifid with several additional teeth; cells arranged in rows, ~20µm across
Large numbers of perianths were present on the terminal shoots, some with considerably longer mouths than shown in image at pix 3.
Despite returning to the spot several times we have not been able to locate it to collect a herbarium specimen.
 2. stem with leaves |
 3. perianth |
 4. perianth cells |
 5. toothed leaf lobe |
2011/01/04 - Lacking a proper key our best guess is that this is Cephaloziella hirta; we take some consolation in Schuster's acknowledgement that 'Perhaps no genus of Hepaticae is more difficult than Cephaloziella'