Pseudocephalozia paludicola R.M.Schust.
Pseudocephalozia paludicola R.M.Schust., Nova Hedwigia 10: 21. 1965.
Holotype: Tasmania, Lake St. Clair Natl. Park, E slope of Mt. Rufus, ca. 3800–4100 ft., Schuster 50512 (F!).
[Fig. 104: 5, oil-bodies, p. 452; Fig. 107]
Plants with leafy shoots erect to suberect, vivid green distally, whitish green below, to 1.1 mm wide. Branching copious, intercalary, indiscriminately from axils of leaves and underleaves, rarely with isolated Frullania -type branches present; stoloniform axes abundant, microphyllous, very remote-leaved, but often distally becoming leafy and erect, the main leafy shoots occasionally becoming stoloniform. Stems with a hyaloderm of large, thin-walled cortical cells in 10–12 rows and a small-celled medulla 4–8 cells across. Rhizoids abundant on microphyllous axes, arising from bases of leaves and underleaves, with swollen, mycorrhiza-like tips. Leaves unistratose, contiguous to weakly imbricate above, extremely variable, obtrapezoidal to sporadically reniform-obtrapezoidal, strongly concave, the lobes usually erect or even incurved, the insertion weakly succubous, 620–1100 µm wide × 500–700 µm long, the apex (3)4–5(6)-lobed to 0.35–0.45; lobes acute, commonly apiculate, 3–6 cells wide at base, terminating in a short uniseriate row of 2–3, scarcely elongated cells; disc usually 6–10 cells high, 15–22 cells wide in 3–4-lobed leaves (to 25–29 cells wide in 5–6-lobed leaves). Cells delicate and thin-walled, variable, polygonal, the median cells 28–42 µm wide × 36–62 µm long; surface smooth. Oil-bodies occupying a very small part of cell, small for cell size, hyaline and glistening, 4–8 per disc cell, coarsely papillose, quickly breaking up, coalescing and appearing very coarsely botryoidal, the oil-bodies globose, 4–5 µm in diam. Underleaves highly polymorphic, even on one stem, the larger underleaves (2)3–4-lobed, 0.75 the size of the leaves, the disc 4–6 cells high, the lobes resembling those of the leaves; smaller underleaves 2–3-lobed, with disc only 1–2 cells high, the lobes consisting of 1–2 elongated cells, terminating in a slime papilla.
Androecia compactly spicate, small, on abbreviated lateral- and sometimes ventral-intercalary branches; bracts in 2–4 cycles, small, imbricate, pouched, 3-lobed; antheridia 1 per bract, the stalk uniseriate; bracteolar antheridia sometimes present, 1–2-androus. Gynoecia on very abbreviated branches originating from stoloniform axes; bracts of innermost series with apices 4-lobulate, the 2 median lobes larger, the 2 stronger lobules terminating in a single cell or a uniseriate row of 2–3 cells; the lamina margins with a few 1–few-celled teeth each terminating in a slime papilla or crenulate by projecting upper ends of cells; bracteoles identical to bracts or somewhat smaller. Perianth terete below and bluntly trigonous in distal ca. 0.25, contracted toward the mouth, the mouth lobulate, the lobules each with the summit crenulate by cells laterally free for varying distances, the terminal cells somewhat elongated, rounded at the summit and not sharp; perianth 2–3-stratose toward base, unistratose above.
Seta with 8–9 rows of large outer cells surrounding ca. 23 rows of small internal cells. Capsule ellipsoidal, the wall 3(sporadically very locally 2)-stratose, 30–31 µm thick; outer layer of cells with two-phase development, the primary walls lacking pigmented thickenings, the secondary walls longitudinal but sporadically also transverse, the longitudinal walls (and the transverse, when present) with thin continuous sheets of pigmented wall material and with nodular thickenings only feebly developed, lending the walls a sinuous appearance; inner layer of cells elongate-rectangular, with semiannular bands common, narrow and pale, the bands at times incomplete, the thickenings then nodular to spine-like.
Spores 12.5–13.4 µm in diam., pale yellow-brown, with low but sharply defined vermiculate markings that often fork and anastomose to delimit irregular areolae. Elaters rigid, at most feebly tortuous, 10.6–11.5 µm wide, bispiral to tips, the spirals 4.3–4.8 µm wide.
Distribution and Ecology : New Zealand: Antipodes Islands (140 m), Stewart Island (20– 30 m), South Island (390–1600 m), North Island (950 m); Australia: Tasmania, Victoria. In New Zealand known from Otago, Westland, Canterbury, Nelson and Volcanic Plateau EPs.
Known from a few scattered, rather open sites in New Zealand. The species is usually found on boggy or swampy peaty soils, but the habitat varies between small clearings in open low forest or tall scrub, sparse tussockland or rushland in seepages and open cushionfield dominated by Sphagnum cristatum and S. falcatulum. On Stewart Island on a clayey bank at 20– 30 m along a stream in a regenerating forest dominated by Fuchsia excorticata and Griselinia littoralis canopy and Blechnum discolor understory (Fern Gully Track). In the South Island on the summit plateau of Mt. Maungatua (30 km W of Dunedin, 825 m), occurring in tussock grassland with a mosaic of scattered bogs having abundant Sphagnum and patches of Dracophyllum, Halocarpus bidwillii, Hebe and Donatia. At this site the species occurred over peaty soil in moist sites (e.g., in a protected niche under Halocarpus bidwillii) or in very wet sites, such as on saturated soil or in small pools. Also in the Paparoa Ra. (Croesus Track, 420 m), occurring on the floor of a steep slope under scrubby vegetation in an area of landslip covered with low scrub vegetation along with abundant bryophytes, Lycopodium and Blechnum. In the North Island on Mt. Ruapehu (near Ohakune Mtn. Road, ca. 950 m) in a swampy area with Libocedrus, Nothofagus and Metrosideros. Other bryophytes found in association with Pseudocephalozia paludicola have been Balantiopsis verrucosa, Campylopus clavatus, Distichophyllum crispulum, D. pulchellum, Kurzia helophila and Pachyschistochila berggrenii.
Comments : A highly malleable species, the underleaves range, often on the same stem, from few-celled and minute (as in Pseudocephalozia lepidozioides) to large, with a large disc and lobes like those of the leaves. The production of large, rather leaf-like underleaves, with a disc 4–6 cells high and 8–10 cells broad, will at once distinguish the species from P. lepidozioides, which has uniformly small, vestigial underleaves. The leaves range from 3- to 6-lobed and from obtrapezoidal to broad and almost reniform. Branching is perhaps 95% intercalary, but terminal, Frullania -type branches are also sporadically produced. The abbreviated branches are, at least normally, intercalary in the axils of lateral leaves, but at least the androecia may be ventral-intercalary. Lateral-intercalary androecia have reduced bracteoles that are few-celled, flat and lack antheridia, but ventral-intercalary androecia are tristichous, the bracteoles inflated, with 1–2 associated antheridia.
