Herzogobryum Grolle
Herzogobryum Grolle, Rev. Bryol. Lichénol. 32: 160. 1964 (1963).
Chondrophyllum Herzog, Rev. Bryol. Lichénol. 21: 46. 1952, non Chondrophyllum Kylin, Acta Univ. Lund. N.S. 20(6): 442. 1924 (Rhodophyta).
Type: Herzogobryum cucullatum (Herzog) Grolle (≡Chondrophyllum cucullatum Herzog)
Plants wiry, filiform, often vermiform, often slenderly terete, greenish to greyish green to brownish, small, to 400 µm wide. Branching sparing, the branches usually lateral-intercalary and ?ventral-intercalary; Frullania -type branches rare; geotropic microphyllous axes lacking. Stems wiry, rigid, the cortex weakly differentiated, in 1–3 layers of often decolorate, weakly to distinctly firm-walled cells; medullary cells weakly to distinctly firm-walled and with rounded lumina. Rhizoids sparse, scattered, colorless. Leaves suberect or erect-appressed, often somewhat dorsally displaced, densely imbricate, often scale-like at stem base and becoming continuously larger distally, the insertion subtransverse to feebly to distinctly succubous, on a lunate line, the insertion lines interlocking dorsally; leaves unistratose (aside from basal field) or (Herzogobryum vermiculare) 2–3-stratose, strongly concave to hemispherical or saucer-shaped, usually ovate to subrotundate to quadrate, unlobed or 0.1–0.2 bilobed; margins erose-denticulate, with ± differentiated cells; surface smooth or delicately striolate toward leaf base. Oil-bodies relatively large, 1–2 to 2–8 per cell, finely papillose (“finely granular botryoidal,” Schuster, 2002a, p. 520). Underleaves lacking or (usually) rudimentary; ventral merophytes vestigial, the insertion lines approximated ventrally. Asexual reproduction absent.
Dioecious. Androecia not distinctly differentiated, eventually intercalary, the bracts in few pairs, leaf-like; antheridia 1 per bract, the stalk 1- or 2-seriate. Gynoecia clavate or subclavate, the bracts gradually larger than leaves, shallowly lobed (even if leaves unlobed); bracteoles present, small or ± large and broad, sometimes approaching bracts in length, free or ± connate with one or both bracts. Perianth well developed, lacking a subtending stem perigynium, usually at least to 0.1–0.2 emergent, lophozioid in form, ovoid to ellipsoidal, strongly pluriplicate, contracted toward the plurilobulate mouth, the lobules crenulate-denticulate or (Herzogobryum vermiculare) fimbriolate, the cells at mouth barely free laterally grading to entirely so, rounded at the summit. Calyptra thin, with sterile archegonia only near base.
Seta massive. Capsule spherical, the wall 2-stratose; outer layer of cells higher than inner cells, with strong nodular thickenings, especially on all longitudinal walls; inner layer of cells narrower, with numerous, relatively weak nodular thickenings, the thickenings at times tangentially extended as spurs, without semiannular bands.
Spores finely granulate to nearly smooth, 9–14 µm in diam., ca. 1.2–1.5 diam. of elaters. Elaters bispiral, 7–10 µm wide.
Key to Species
A genus of five species, all cool to cold south temperate–subantarctic in range, and several with a circum-subantarctic distribution. All occur in New Zealand except Herzogobryum molle Grolle, which is known from Tristan da Cunha, Tierra del Fuego and the Valdivian zone in Chile (Cerro Tesoro Massiv, Prov. Aisen) as well as in Argentina (Parque Natl. Nahuelhuapi).
Treatment of genus adapted and modified from Grolle (1966b) and Schuster (1996d, 2002a).
References: Grolle (1966b), Schuster (1996d, 2002a).
