Telaranea paludicola (E.A.Hodgs.) E.A.Hodgs.
Holotype: New Zealand, North Is., Tararuas, Oriwa Lake Hollow, bog, 3300 ft., 15 April 1933, Zotov (CHR!; “No. 6619 in Bot. Divn. Herb.”); isotype: (MPN, Hodgson herb. no. 1193, non vidi).
Plants with a rather spinose appearance, resembling Telaranea praenitens, soft, flexuous yet firm, loosely prostrate, often in dense, compact mats, pale green to olive-green or at times brownish yellow to rust-brown, nitid when dry; shoots medium, to 0.9 cm wide, including branches. Branching somewhat irregularly to regularly 1-pinnate, the branches of the Frullania type, often flagelliform; branch half-leaf 2(3–4)-lobed, narrowly rectangular to linear, the lobes parallel to slightly diverging; first branch underleaf undivided and ciliiform or less often 2–3-lobed, inserted on ventral or ventral-lateral side of branch near base. Ventral-intercalary branches occasional, often becoming leading shoots and leafy throughout. Stems with cortical cells markedly differentiated, the radial walls thin, the outer wall slightly thickened, in 12–14 rows; cortical cells in section larger than the numerous (ca. 65) medullary cells. Leaves on main shoot rigid, distant to loosely imbricate, widely spreading, moderately concave, the lobes incurved, the insertion moderately incubous; leaves 770–980(1260) µm wide (from lobe tip to lobe tip) × 700–1050 µm long, usually distinctly asymmetric, or less often subsymmetric, ± equally 4(5–6)-lobed to ca. 0.4–0.6, the lobes typically somewhat longer than the disc, often distinctly falcate and hooked at the tip. Lobes slender, long-attenuate, divergent, the dorsal lobes often ± paired, the lobes 3–4 cells wide for 1–2 tiers at extreme base, biseriate for 2–4(5) tiers, terminating in a long uniseriate row of (4)5–7(8) cells (at times more than half the length of lobe); lobe cells ± firm, thin to moderately thickened, the septa thickened in the corners but not swollen and projecting from the lobe margins (the lobes at times somewhat constricted at the septum), the lobe cells all elongated (to 2.5:1); surface smooth or finely striate-papillose at lobe tips. Disc often distinctly asymmetric, typically longer than broad and narrowing to the base, 5–7 cells high (from median sinus base to leaf base), 15–16 cells wide in distal portion narrowing to 8–11 cells wide in basal portion; disc margins entire, or the marginal cells somewhat bulging. Cells of disc moderately thin-walled, trigones small or lacking, median disc cells longitudinally elongate, (38)45–52 µm wide × 65–110 µm long, in ± regular, somewhat obliquely arranged tiers; surface smooth. Underleaves much smaller than leaves, strongly spreading to subsquarrose, distant, plane, 4(5)-lobed to ca. 0.6, the lobes ciliiform, straight to subfalcate and hooked at tip, 2 cells wide at the base, often with an additional biseriate tier at base of lobe, the uniseriate portion formed of (3)5–8 short to elongated cells with septa thickened at the corners; disc symmetrically cuneate, 4–5(6) cells high (median sinus), the cells in ± regular tiers; disc 9–12 cells wide in distal portion narrowing to 8 cells wide at base. Rhizoid initial cells small, subquadrate, at bases of lobes or forming a continuous bistratose, dense band across the apex of the disc.
Gametangia and sporophytes not seen.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: Stewart Island (5 m), South Island (60–1480 m), North Island (305–1320 m). Known from Fiordland, Southland, Otago, Westland, Canterbury (Arthur’s Pass), Western Nelson, Sounds–Nelson, Southern North Island, Taranaki, Volcanic Plateau and Northland EPs.
Sporadic in distribution in middle and upper elevations (usually not below 500 m) of both South and North islands. As the specific epithet suggests, the plants typically occur in boggy sites, at times creeping among Sphagnum cristatum (for example, on the sides of old Sphagnum mounds, or mixed with Chiloscyphus spiniferus deep in shaded pockets among bryophyte masses). At Omoeroa Saddle it occurred in a bog with dwarf shrub heath vegetation including Juncus, Carex and stunted Libocedrus bidwillii surrounded by mature Dacrydium cupressinum forest. In penalpine areas it occurs in sheltered, protected pockets, particularly in moist sites, such as rills in scrub consisting of Chionochloa, Dracophyllum and Hebe or of Dracophyllum and Olearia colensoi; also found under cover of tussock blades in mosaic areas of stunted O. colensoi and Chionochloa. Also at the lips of tarns in low alpine vegetation (Mt. Robert Skifield, Nelson Lakes Natl. Park).
The species also is present on Stewart Island, but as is the case with a number of vascular and nonvascular plants, it occurs at considerably lower elevations on this island as compared to counterparts on the South and North islands (see Wardle, 1991). Telaranea paludicola was found at 5 m (track to Mason Bay) in a mosaic of stagnant ponds, Sphagnum bog, open Leptospermum scoparium – Dracophyllum heath (to 1–2 m tall) and dense communities of Gleichenia dicarpa and Empodisma minus. At this site the species occurs in ± protected, moist niches, e.g., on the floor (particularly in pockets), on vertical, shaded small banks under L. scoparium or at the margin of bryophyte-covered mounds beneath Leptospermum. At Waiotapu Valley (Volcanic Plateau), it was found on a shaded damp bank with Trichocolea rigida and Distichophyllum pulchellum.
Comments : Telaranea paludicola is a striking plant when well developed. Although described as a variety of T. meridiana (Hodgson, 1956), T. paludicola has little to do with that species. It is more likely to be confused with T. tetrapila, but is distinguished primarily by the pronounced leaf asymmetry (Fig. 62: 5, 6, 8), the longitudinally elongated disc cells (Fig. 62: 5, 6), and the slender, caudate leaf lobes, which are often falcate and hooked at the tips (Fig. 62: 6–8).
