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tasmanian liverworts - lepidoziaceae
telaranea pallescens
1. shoot
This was growing in a seepage with Riccardia,
Kurzia sp. and a few mosses. It looked like
a Telaranea, the uniseriate leaf lobes somewhat
resembling T. herzogii but the branching was
peculiar. Looking from the dorsal side towards the apex, it
had Frullania type branches on the right
and Microlepidozia type branches on the left. This
dimorphism is usually associated with Kurzia species.
It keyed out to Telaranea pallescens. Not surprisingly it
was known as Kurzia quadriseta in earlier times.
Branching on the small sampling was mainly lateral, with some secondary branches present. E&SM1 describes this as having sporadic flegellate branch tips but we did not observe any.
Stem section revealed 17 rows of cortical cells and 23 rows of medullary cells (pix2). E&SM describe this as having (12-16) + (15-20) cells but all the specimens they examined were from New Zealand. We do not know if the Tasmania form differs.
Leaves on the main stem were mainly set transversely. Main stem
leaves were usually 6-fid but this reduces to 4-fid on branches and
as little as tri/bi-fid on secondary branches. Lobes were mostly
6-celled and uniseriate, joining pairs of cells at the disk. There
was the occasional lobe with biseriate cells at the proximal
end. Disk consisted of 2 rows of sub-quadrate cells with around 11
cells at point of attachment. A few disk cells had 2-4 oil bodies
but these were not apparent on the lobe cells.
Underleaves had few rhizoids arising from the disk but these were
not prominent. A few were peculiar in terminating in club form (pix
4).
Branch half leaves were both tri/bi-fid
There were a couple of short ventral intercalary androecial branches arising from the main stem as well as one terminal on a longer branch. The antheridia were tiny and they appeared to have uniseriate stalks. Gynoecial branches were absent.
 2. stem TS |
 3. leaf |
 4. rhizoids |
 5. androecium |
References
- 1Engel JJ & Smith Merrill GL (2004) Austral
Hepaticae. 35. A taxonomic and phylogenetic study of Telaranea
(Lepidoziaceae), with a monograph of the genus in temperate
Australasia and commentary on extra-Australasian
taxa. Fieldiana Botany, New Series 44.
University of Illinois provides several free versions of this monograph - the pdf file is around 30MB
- Engel, J.J. & Glenny, D., A Flora of the Liverworts and
Hornworts of New Zealand, Vol 1,
p. 331; ISBN 978-1-930723-67-2
Page URL: http://www.bluetier.org/Liverwort/telaranea-pallescens.htm