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tasmanian liverworts - lepidoziaceae

lepidozia procera

Lepidozia procera
1. Plants growing off a vertical rock wall

 

This is a little unusual for a Lepidozia in not always having having prostrate growth. Distal branching was perpendicular to the vertical rock wall it was growing upon, and pinnate shoots were arranged in neat parallel lines as can be seen in pix 1.

Engels & Glenny's description and drawings support our identification of this liverwort. They report androecia and gynoecia had not been seen at time of publication (and presumably sporophytes as well) so we were fortunate to collect a specimen with newly dehisced capsules.
Several months later we visited the same site and were fortunate to collect specimens with gynoecia as well as developing perianths.

We stored some damp live plants in a jar for several weeks and noticed the following on the fresh growth (pix 6 & 7):
- some of the underleaf lobes were bifid
- underleaves produced rhizoids from various positions on the leaf disk; few of the rhizoids were branched
- underleaf leaf lobes terminated in slime papillae - these were not obvious in field specimens
- ventral intercalary branches were present
- chloroplasts were much more obvious within the cells.

Fertile specimens have been lodged with HO.

Lepidozia procera leaf
2. leaf
Lepidozia procera cells
3. leaf cells
Lepidozia procera spore
4. spore
Lepidozia procera capsule wall
5. capsule wall
Lepidozia procera underleaf
6. underleaf rhizoids
Lepidozia procera underleaf lobe
7. underleaf papillae

 

References:
- Engel, J.J. & Glenny, D., A Flora of the Liverworts and Hornworts of New Zealand: Volume 1 p. 211

Page URL: http://www.bluetier.org/Liverwort/lepidozia-procera.htm

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