Clandarium xiphophyllum (Grolle) R.M.Schust.
Blepharidophyllum xiphophyllum Grolle, J. Hattori Bot. Lab. 28: 65. f. 3 a–e. 1965.
Clandarium xiphophyllum (Grolle) R.M.Schust., Phytologia 56: 68. 1984.
Type: Tasmania, Cradle Valley, Pencil Pine River, Rodway.
Diplophyllum densifolium fo. decurvum Rodway, Tasman. Bryoph. 2: 77. 1916.
Type: Tasmania, West Coast.
Plants closely prostrate (except for the erect, microphyllous, gemmiparous shoot apices), yellowish green but often rose-red to vinaceous even in shade, to 3 mm wide, 4 cm long, the shoot tips ventrally decurved. Branching common, the branches long, mostly of Frullania type; ventral-intercalary type occasional. Stems with surface striate-papillose, in cross section with a 1-layered hyalodermis of small cells with the exposed wall very thin and (1)2 subhyaloderm cell layers with strongly thickened, sometimes slightly reddish brown walls; medullary cells thin-walled, on average slightly larger. Rhizoids usually present, in bundles from the stem at the ventral base of the leaves. Leaves markedly stiff and brittle, easily tearing, loosely to densely imbricate, bilobed to 0.6–0.75, sharply keeled, the keel ± straight, oriented oblique to stem or nearly at right angles. Lobes at least in the lower part flat and providing a planodiscous leaf arrangement, the lobes ± similar in shape, shallowly lobulate, lanceolate, each strongly arched toward the abruptly narrowed base; apex of each of the main lobes distinctly bifid, the segments caudate, ciliiform, the cilia rigid, terminating in a uniseriate row of 2–3(4), elongate, thick-walled, subcapillary cells with knob-like dilated septa; margins of distal sector of both lobes (especially the dorsal) freely ciliate, the cilia each comprised of one elongated (mostly 5–8:1) thick-walled cell, the cell markedly thickened at the summit, the margins in median and basal sectors spinose-dentate by unicellular teeth, the margins otherwise crenulate by distinctly dilated septa. Ventral lobe oriented at 70–80° with stem, the distal sector ± basiscopically curved so that the ventral face of the lobe is oriented toward the shoot base. Dorsal lobe ± conspicuously shorter, at an angle of 30–45° with stem, the distal sector plane and hardly curved ventrally or ventrally curved. Cells in median and distal sectors of lobes with strongly thickened walls, the cells at leaf base sometimes with trigones, the median cells of ventral lobe 14–20 µm wide × 23–38 µm long, the basal cells 14–18 µm wide × (36)42–54 µm long; surface conspicuously finely papillose, the papillae at margins (apex to base) isodiametric, the papillae of lobe middle and base somewhat elongated, the papillae at base ± similar to those of lobe middle. Oil-bodies occupying small volume of the cell, dull opaque and hazy in appearance, 2 in nearly all non-ciliiform cells of lobes, even in cells of differing size and shape, 2–4(5) per basal leaf cell, obscurely finely papillose, the globules distinct, the oil-bodies globose to broadly elliptic to linear. Underleaves absent. Asexual reproduction by 2-celled pale gemmae from malformed and reduced leaves and underleaves of gemmiparous apices of main shoot or short Frullania -type branches, the gemmae sporadically present; gemmiparous leaves typically small, developing gemmae in catenated branched masses at lobe apices and, at times, from apices of teeth lower on leaf margins; underleaves present at tips of gemmiparous shoots, conspicuous, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, bifid to ca. 0.1–0.4, developing gemmae in a similar manner to leaves.
Androecia unknown. Gynoecia terminal on leading shoots, often with 1–3 subfloral innovations, bracts of innermost series leaf-like except more closely and conspicuously armed, smaller than the next series below, canaliculate, erect (both lobes) and ± tightly appressed to perianth, deeply bifid, the lobes each shallowly bilobed, broader than those of vegetative leaves but grading into them; bracteoles lacking. Perianth distinctly exserted, linear-elliptic in outline, weakly inflated toward base but the remainder clearly dorsiventrally flattened, becoming increasingly so distally, shallowly plicate, the plicae more pronounced in median sector of perianth, the perianth narrowed toward the strongly compressed mouth, the mouth truncate, closely spinose-dentate to subciliate by cells that are free only in distal third grading to entirely free to their bases, the cells elongate (to 6:1), tapering to a sharp, often notably thick-walled summit; cells below mouth markedly thick-walled (particularly the longitudinal walls); perianth 4–5-stratose in basal portion.
For sporophyte see genus description.
Distribution and Ecology : New Zealand: Campbell Island, Auckland Islands (395 m), Stewart Island (365–455 m), South Island (0–1140 m), North Island (835–1280 m), Chatham Islands; Australia: Tasmania. In New Zealand known from Fiordland (Lake Hauroko, Secretary Island, Milford Sound), Westland (Red Hills, Lake Ellery, Haast Pass, Fox River, Gillespies Beach, Hari Hari, Kelly Ra., Hohonu Ra.), Canterbury (upper Wilberforce River), Western Nelson (Sewell Peak), Volcanic Plateau (Mt. Ruapehu) and Auckland (Mt. Moehau) EPs.
A plant of cool humid but not wet conditions. For example, it occurs admixed with Herzogianthus vaginatus on steep, moist, peaty, mossy banks in a valley within a low Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides forest (bank of Mangawhero River, Tongariro Natl. Park, ca. 1200 m); also on the trunk of Griselinia littoralis in a swampy area with Libocedrus, Nothofagus and Metrosideros (ca. 8 km from Ohakune on Ohakune Mtn. Road, Tongariro Natl. Park, ca. 950 m); and as scattered shoots on Libocedrus bark in an area with a poorly drained, mucky, fine peat floor in a wet mossy forest of Lepidothamnus intermedius, Ixerba brexioides and Dacrydium cupressinum with occasional Phyllocladus glaucus (summit of Table Mtn., Coromandel Forest Park, 835 m). Also on a steep, vertical, shaded, humid but not wet rock in a Nothofagus menziesii forest (1 km N of Haast Pass, ca. 520 m). It also was found on rock at the edge of a pool under a rock overhang, in a mosaic of penalpine scrub and alpine vegetation on Arthur’s Pass (920 m). In the penalpine zone it can occasionally be found on hillslopes and gullies that are cold and south-facing, under Chionochloa pallens, C. australis, Olearia colensoi, Dracophyllum longifolium, D. rosmarinifolium tussocklands and shrublands. Occurring on ± open boggy ground (Lake Ellery Track, southern Westland, 30 m) and, according to Schuster (2002a), at sea level at Milford Sound (Fiordland). Associated species are Acrobolbus lophocoleoides, Acromastigum anisostomum, A. mooreanum, Adelanthus occlusus, Bazzania involuta, Breutelia pendula, Dicranoloma robustum, Gackstroemia alpina, Kurzia hippuroides, Lembidium nutans, Lepidozia microphylla, L. obtusiloba, L. pendulina, Leptoscyphus australis, Pseudomarsupidium piliferum, Radula sainsburiana, Riccardia colensoi, Schistochila monticola, Temnoma quadripartitum, Treubia pygmaea and Trichotemnoma corrugatum.
Comments : A distinctive species, with conduplicately bilobed leaves and similar dorsal and ventral lobes united by a rather short keel (Fig. 173: 3). The shoots are rather strongly dorsiventrally flattened (Fig. 172: 1) and in that respect are quite different from Blepharidophyllum. Both lobes are shallowly divided at the apex (Fig. 172: 1; Fig. 173: 3), and the distal sector of the main lobes and also the margins of the small lobes have rigid cilia comprised of elongate, subcapillary cells (Fig. 172: 3, 4). Plants frequently developing rose-red to vinaceous pigments, even in shade.
