Flora of New Zealand Series

Jungermannia argentea Hook.f. & Taylor, London J. Bot. 3: 400. 1844.

Zoopsis argentea (Hook.f. & Taylor) Gottsche, Lindenb. & Nees, Syn. Hepat. 473. 1846.

Cephalozia argentea (Hook.f. & Taylor) Lindb., J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 13: 191. 1872. 

Type: Auckland Is.

Plants to 455 µm wide, axis and rudimentary leaves moderately flattened, not band-shaped; axis proper formed dorsally of 2 rows of cells (with at most sporadically a cell once-septate); ventral face of axis of 4 cell rows (leaves included); ventral side of axis lacking conspicuous rhizoid-initial discs.

Distribution and Ecology : New Zealand: Campbell Island, Auckland Islands, Stewart Island (30–220 m), South Island (0–960 m), North Island (25–920 m), Chatham Islands; Australia: Tasmania, Western Australia, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales (Meagher and Fuhrer, 2003). In New Zealand known from Fiordland, Southland, Otago, Westland, Western Nelson, Marlborough, Southern North Island, Gisborne, Volcanic Plateau and Northland EPs.

A plant of moderately to well-shaded sites and often on organic substrates. It is rather common on rotted, decorticated, often bryophyte-covered logs or stumps (at times where the wood is crumbly) and particularly on the sides, or lower halves of the sides, where moister conditions prevail. Also rather common on the bases and trunks of tree ferns, particularly of Dicksonia squarrosa, both of living individuals as well as those that are old, rotted, moist and prostrate. Also on dead stipes of the tree fern Cyathea dealbata, being one of few plants invading that surface. Also at tree bases or among exposed roots, especially the meshing of roots, particularly where some soil has accumulated, and plants at times are present in the niche notable for the genus Zoopsis : deep in shaded, protected recesses or hollows at tree bases or tree buttresses. Less often over bare soil of protected, moist pockets or hollows of banks or slopes. Recorded as an epiphyte on tree trunks of Weinmannia racemosa, Dacrydium cupressinum, Libocedrus bidwillii and Dracophyllum arboreum. Exceptionally in protected niches of large rock outcrops. Associated with Bazzania adnexa, B. nitida, Canalohypopterygium tamariscinum, Chiloscyphus echinellus, Cyathophorum bulbosum, Distichophyllum pulchellum, Kurzia hippuroides, Leptotheca gaudichaudii, Leucobryum candidum, Orthorrhynchium elegans, Psiloclada clandestina, Rhizogonium distichum, R. pennatum and Telaranea herzogii.

Comments : In the var. argentea the axis is formed dorsally of 2 cell rows, or at times 3 cell rows, through subdivision of one of the two dorsal cortical cells. The cortex consists normally of 8 cells. Cross sections usually reveal 2 inflated, exceptionally large dorsal cortical cells, flanked on either side by a cell (the chlorophyllous, basal leaf cell). On the ventral side, the cortex is normally formed of 6 cells, the two smaller median ones representing the ventral merophyte, the two on each side constituting the lateral merophytes.