Lophozia herzogiana E.A.Hodgs. & Grolle
Lophozia herzogiana E.A.Hodgs. & Grolle in Grolle, Rev. Bryol. Lichénol. 31: 152. f. 1. 1962.
Holotype: New Zealand, North Is., N of Rotorua, near Atiamuri, 1931, Allison (MPN 19439 ex herb. Hodgson no. 11881); isotype: (CHR ex herb. Allison H2528!).
Plants pale green, at times red-tinged, sometimes strongly so. Stems with cortical cells poorly differentiated, feebly thick-walled, subequal to the medullary cells, a few cells with mycorrhizal hyphae; medullary cells undifferentiated, ± uniform. Rhizoids, pale, long, irregularly scattered on ventral surface of stem, with some from stem at underleaf base and ventral leaf base. Branching sparse, irregular, the branches of ventral-intercalary type. Leaves distant to contiguous, obliquely spreading, the insertion moderately to distinctly succubous, the leaves 2–3-fid to 0.5–0.75; lobes plane to a little ventrally sulcate, divergent, mostly 2–3× as long as broad, lanceolate, distinctly acute, at times somewhat apiculate, entire, terminating in a unicellular row of 2–4 cells; lamina weakly subcarinate distally, entire or sporadically with a tooth. Cells with walls thin, trigones minute or lacking, the median cells (35)40–50 µm wide; basal cells scarcely larger; surface smooth or minutely striate toward leaf base. Underleaves large, ca. 0.35× leaf size, subcuneate-oblong, bilobed to ca. 0.5, often asymmetrically so, the lobes ± acuminate, at times subapiculate, the lobe and lamina margins entire; underleaves on suboptimal shoots undivided, lanceolate and with margins entire or with a tooth. Asexual reproduction by gemmae borne on elongate, attenuated, purplish branches, with leaves and underleaves equal in size, small and appressed, the gemmae reddish, (1)2-celled, 4–5-angled.
Dioecious? (only ♀ known). Androecia not seen. Gynoecia on leading shoots; bracts of innermost series ensheathing the perianth, free, cuneate at the base, 4-lobed to 0.35; bracteoles of innermost series bilobed, similar to bracts in size. Perianth long-exserted, cylindrical, elliptic-subfusiform, plicate in distal 0.2–0.25, contracted to the mouth, the mouth crenulate-subdentate by cells that are free only from just below the summit grading to nearly entirely free to their bases, the cells only slightly elongated, at most moderately tapering to a rounded summit; perianth bistratose in basal 0.2, the remainder unistratose.
Capsule long-exserted beyond perianth, the wall 35–45 µm thick, of (3)4 layers, the outer layer of cells with nodular thickenings; inner layer of cells with semiannular bands.
Spores brown, ca. 14 µm in diam., minutely asperulate. Elaters bispiral, ca. 7 µm wide.
Distribution and Ecology : New Zealand: South Island (620 m), North Island (300 m); Australia: New South Wales (Tinderry Mtns., 1220 m, Curnow 4598, CANB). Adventive in southern England (Crundwell and Smith, 1989).
Known in the North Island from an area centered on Rotorua (Whakarewarewa Hill, Atiamuri, E of Waiotapu Valley, Kaingaroa Forest); all specimens collected by K. W. Allison between 1929 and 1940 and mostly found under Leptospermum scoparium on rotting tussock, soil and rotting logs, but also recorded by Allison as “on vegetation in swamp” and “on dead tutu (Coriaria) in opening in pine forest.” A specimen recorded more recently in the South Island in the Fyfe River (Marino Mtns., Western Nelson) may be this species but lacks the distinctive facies of L. herzogiana. It occurred on a quartzite boulder on a riverbank bordered by Nothofagus menziesii forest, with Triandrophyllum subtrifidum (Glenny 6216, CHR 507146).
Comments : A distinctive species in the large and conspicuous underleaves, which are ca. 0.35× leaf size. The underleaves are bilobed (at least on well-developed shoots) to ca. 0.5, often asymmetrically so. Leaves are rather deeply 2–3(4)-lobed and the cells are leptodermous. Grolle (1962b) included a useful illustration, Hodgson (1972) included an illustration (fig. 2, by T. Herzog), and Schuster (2002a, fig. 299, p. 244) provided an illustration based upon an isotype.
