Lepidozia

Authority

Fulford, Margaret H. 1966. Manual of the leafy Hepaticae of Latin America--Part II. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 11: 173-276.

Family

Lepidoziaceae

Scientific Name

Lepidozia

Description

Species Description - Plants in whitish, yellow-green, greenish-brown, or brown mats or tufts, often pendulous or among other bryophytes; stems filiform to robust, 0.5-10 cm long, pinnate or bi-tripinnate, the lateral branches usually of limited growth, of the Frullania type with the dorsal half-leaf ovate, bifid, often becoming flagelliform in the outer part, the ventral branches axillary, intercalary, flagelliform, occasionally leafy, or very short, sexual. Stem in transverse section rounded, usually pigmented with brown, little differentiated. Rhizoids colorless, the tips enlarged or variously branched, from the scales of flagelliform branch tips, more rarely from the bases of the underleaves. Line of leaf insertion straight to slightly curved, subtransverse, obliriue or almost longitudinal. Leaves incubous, alternate, symmetric or asymmetric, quadrate, rectangular, broadly cuneate or ovate-truncate, the dorsal margin convex from a straight to cordate l)ase, the margins of the lamina entire or toothed, incised or ciliate, quadrifid (in some species with five or six segments), the segments triangular; leaf-cells quadrate-hexagonal, the walls uniformly thickened, the trigones when present minute. Underleaves transverse, nearly as large as the leaves to much smaller, the segments triangular to uniseriate, the margins entire, incised, toothed, or ciliate. Branch leaves and underleaves larger or smaller. Plants dioicous, a few species monoicous, the sexual branches short, ventral, axillary-intercalary. Male branches catkin-like (rarely becoming intercalary on a leafy stem), the bracteoles plane, the bracts concave, 2-5-parted above, diandrous (?); antheridia large, spherical, the stalk short, one or two cells thick. Female branches occasional, the bracts and bracteoles in three or four series, different from the leaves, orbicular-ovate, divided above. Perianth to 6 cm long, cylindric to fusiform, of several layers of cellsbelow, one-layered above, the mouth contracted, crenulate to long-ciliate. Shoot/sporophyte relationship a shoot-calyptra. Sporophyte .stalk, the seta, with a layer of 8-16 large cells surrounding 12 to 45 similar or smaller cells; capsule spherical, with a 3- or 4-layered wall, the outermost layer with brown knot-like thickenings along the radial walls, the innermost layer with brown bands across the inner tangential wall; spores small, brown; elaters long, slender, bispiral. Sporeling of the Nardia type.

Discussion

Pleuroschisma sect. Lepidozia Dumortier, Syll. Jungerm. 69. 1831.

Mastigophora C. G. Nees, Nat. Eur. Leberm. 1: 95, 101. 1833. Non Nees, Nat. Eur. Leberm. 3: 85. 1838.

Herpeiiuvi sect. Lepidozia C. G. Nees, Nat. Eur. Leberm. 3: 85. 1838.

Lepidozia subg. Eulcpidozia Spruce, Jour. Bot. London 14: 164. 1876.

Lepidozia subg. Ptilolepidozia Spruce, Jour. Bot. London 14: 164. 1876.

This large genus is most abundant in the mountain forests of tropical and subtropical regions, with a few species extending northward into the Northern Hemisphere, or southward from the subtropics as in Bazzania. A few species have an Antarctic distribution.

Unlike Bazzania, this genus does not consist of obvious, well-marked groups or sections, although differentiation has progressed along certain well-defined lines. There is a high degree of variability among the plants of some species and even between male and female plants of some species, so that limits of certain taxa are arbitrary.

Type species: Jitngermannia reptans L.