Telaranea tuberifera J.J.Engel & R.M.Schust.
Telaranea tuberifera J.J.Engel & R.M.Schust., Fieldiana, Bot. N.S. 14: 2. f. 1. 1983.
Holotype: New Zealand, South Is., Fjordland Natl. Park, Falls Creek, Upper Hollyford River valley, along Milford Road, Schuster 48775 (F).
[Fig. 64; Fig. 67: 1, oil-bodies, p. 322]
Plants soft, flexuous, prostrate, often in interwoven, ± thick mats, glaucous, greenish white to ceraceous, becoming light brown with age, distinctly water-repellent; shoots medium, to 1 cm wide including branches. Branching loosely and somewhat irregularly pinnate, occasionally 2–3-pinnate, the branches of the Frullania type; branch half-leaf bifid, linear; first branch underleaf undivided, ciliate to subulate, inserted on ventral side of branch base, at times displaced toward the ventral-lateral side of the stem-branch juncture. Ventral-intercalary branches common, leafy or stoloniform and rooting in the substrate. Stems with cortical cells thin-walled, with a granular coating like that of the leaves, in 12–14 rows, those on ventral side of stem somewhat smaller, in section much larger than the numerous (ca. 25) medullary cells. Rhizoids from distal cells of underleaf disc. Leaves on main shoot rigid, fragile (the lobe tips frequently caducous), spreading ± at right angles to stem, imbricate, plane, strongly horizontally oriented, the disc in the same plane as the dorsal surface of the stem or nearly so, the insertion strongly incubous; leaves 595–770 µm wide × 775–840 µm long, subsymmetric, longer than broad, (3)4-lobed to 0.4–0.5, the lobes strictly parallel with disc margins, equal to or shorter than the disc. Lobes setaceous, typically 2 cells wide at extreme base (or rarely 4 cells wide, and then biseriate for 1[2] tiers), terminating in a uniseriate portion of (4)5–6(7) cells only weakly constricted at the septa; cells of uniseriate portion thin- to somewhat thick-walled, elongated, the walls not bulging. Disc ± symmetrically rectangular, often rather narrowly so, 6–9(10) cells high (from median sinus base to leaf base), 8–10(11) cells wide in distal portion, 8(11) cells wide at base; margins entire, the ventral ± straight, the dorsal curved (especially as seen in situ). Cells of disc in regular longitudinal rows, the cell walls thin to slightly thickened, trigones minute or absent; median disc cells large, short-rectangular to somewhat elongated, 41–54 µm wide × 60–74 µm long; basal row of disc cells considerably larger (much longer and generally a little wider) and forming an obvious tier; surface a dense granular and faintly striate coating. Oil-bodies present in all leaf cells, but disappearing in distal-most 1–2 cells of lobes, occupying small portion of cell, hyaline, 7–9 per median disc cell, irregular in shape, fusiform to long-linear to crescentic, often subvermiform, coarsely papillose. Underleaves much smaller than leaves, strongly spreading, distant, often gently curved dorsally, 3–4-lobed to 0.55–0.7, the lobes divergent, ciliiform, consisting solely of a uniseriate row of (2)3(4) elongated, thin-walled cells, the lobes terminating in a slime papilla; disc narrowed toward base, (2)3–4 rows of cells high and 8(9) cells wide, the basal tier of cells larger. Rhizoid initials in a band at base of underleaf lobes. Asexual reproduction by elliptic to ovoid tubers at the tips of stoloniform branches and probably by caducous leaf lobes.
Plants apparently dioecious. Androecia not seen. Gynoecia with bracts small for perianth size, those of innermost series concave, broadly ovate, ± regularly 4–6 ciliate-lobulate, the lobules 2(4) cells wide at base, with a uniseriate row of 2(3) cells, terminating in a slime papilla; lamina composed of ± regularly subrectangular cells, the margins each with 1–several weak teeth formed by the apical or free divergent end of marginal cells, terminating in a slime papilla, otherwise entire; bracteoles similar in form and size to bracts. Perianth long-emergent, fusiform, terete in basal and median sectors, the distal sector obscurely trigonous and with 3(4) plicae, the perianth narrowing toward the strongly contracted mouth; mouth cells thin-walled, often sinuate, partially or wholly laterally free, occasionally with a laterally free uniseriate row of 2 cells, the mouth thus shortly denticulate-subciliate; perianth 2–3-stratose in lower portion, the median portion 2-stratose.
Seta with 5–7 rows of outer cells surrounding an inner core of 9–17 much smaller cells. Capsule short-ellipsoidal, 476–497 µm wide, 910–980 µm long, the wall 24 µm thick, of 3 layers, the layers of ± equal thickness; outer layer of cells in tiers, rather regularly short-rectangular, with two-phase development, the longitudinal walls with well-defined sheet-like thickenings and nodule-like to spinose thickenings (4–6 per cell) alternating with walls that are devoid of thickenings (or with sporadic, local, non-pigmented to pigmented, nodular swellings), the transverse walls devoid of thickenings, or rarely with a few nodular swellings; innermost layer of cells ± tiered, irregularly narrowly rectangular, with semiannular bands common, rather narrow, close, usually complete, at times short and spinose, or rarely forked.
Spores 13.9–15.8 µm in diam., the wall yellow-brown, areolate (with a network of sharply defined furcate ridges that coalesce and delimit areolae). Elaters rigid, nontortuous, 8.2–10.6 µm wide, only slightly tapering toward tips, bispiral to tips, the spirals 2.9–4.8 µm wide.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: Stewart Island (0–80 m), South Island (10–930 m), North Island (0–890 m). Known from Fiordland, Westland, Canterbury (Arthur’s Pass), Western Nelson, Southern North Island, Volcanic Plateau (Tauranga), Auckland (Kaimai Ra., Coromandel) and Northland (Waipoua) EPs. The species occurs mostly on Stewart Island and South Island and is infrequent and sporadic in the North Island. For the most part it is terricolous in lower- to middle- to upper-elevation forests of, for example, Podocarpus, or of Nothofagus fusca, Dacrydium cupressinum, Weinmannia racemosa, or of N. menziesii associated with Dracophyllum and Quintinia serrata or of dense, broadleaf forests of Coprosma grandifolia, Ripogonum scandens, Rhopalostylis sapida and ferns. It typically occupies very shaded niches in forests, where it may form pure, at times extensive colonies, often in sites too shaded for other plants. It is often found deep in shaded pockets or holes and on steep-sided banks, as, for example, under the lip-like overhang of the forest edge at the top of the bank of Waikohatu Stream. It is notable, for example, that Hodgson 632 (Mt. Drury, a 20 m hill 1 km SE of Mt. Maunganui, Tauranga) was collected on the sides of a cave. It may be penalpine, where it may line deep pockets or deep crevices in ledges in scrub of, for example, Olearia, Dracophyllum longifolium, Gaultheria and Ozothamnus leptophyllus. It is found with Mittenia plumula, Podomitrium phyllanthus, Psiloclada clandestina, Rhizogonium pennatum, Zoopsis argentea and Z. matawaia.
The Butterfield Beach station on Stewart Island is of interest. Plants formed large sheets over a thin layer of sandy, loamy soil on bedrock near the mouth of a sea cave just a few meters above sea level on an exposed shoreline. The niche likely would be exposed to periodic salt spray (see Engel and Schuster, 1973).
Comments : This is the common New Zealand glaucous Telaranea, which has been known in the New Zealand literature as T. centipes (Hodgson, 1956; Allison and Child, 1975). Telaranea centipes s. str., however, is confined to Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales. The chief differences between T. tuberifera and T. centipes are in the shape of the disc, the disc margins and the form of the lobes. The lobes in T. tuberifera are setaceous and whisker-like (Fig. 64: 6, 13), composed of a uniseriate row of 5–6 cells, typically inserted on a base of 2 cells, which are a continuation of the highly regular longitudinal rows of cells of the disc (Fig. 64: 5, 7). The cells of the uniseriate row are elongated (to 4.6:1) and subcapillary (Fig. 64: 14). They are much longer than those of T. centipes and are never bulging, nor are the lobes strongly constricted at the septa.
The leaf disc of Telaranea tuberifera is parallel-sided and the lobes strictly aligned with the disc margins as in T. tetrapila var. roseana, but T. tuberifera is distinctly glaucous, greenish white to ceraceous and almost tediously water-repellent, whereas T. tetrapila and its varieties are never so. As in T. tetrapila (p. 301), the disc cells of T. tuberifera are large and prominent, even under the dissecting microscope, but unlike T. tetrapila, the leaves are horizontally oriented, with the disc lying in essentially the same plane as the stem.
