Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Specimen #3 Leafy Liverwort

                                           Figure 1: Close-up view of the unique leaves
                                           Figure 2: Nowellia growing in its natural environment
                                           Figure 3: Very tiny liverwort leaves
Name: Nowellia curvifolia
Family:  Cephaloizaceae
Collection Date:  October 8, 2011
Habitat: Woody pieces of debris under a tree
Location: Hiram College Field Station woods
Description: Very small leafy liverwort with unique, deeply lobbed leaves. Hard to dissect without a high-power microscope. Light green in color and in a dense tuft.
Collector: Kelcie Cuckler

Key used: Conard, H.S. and P.L. Redfearn, Jr. 1979. How to Know the Mosses and Liverworts 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill, Boston, Mass.
Keying Steps:
Introduction Key pg. 19
1b.Plants with stems and leaves, the larger leaves in two rows on the stem and a third row of leaves...present, ...sporophyte short-lived.....4
4b. Plants ...leafy,....sporophyte with sphaerical or ellipsoidal capsule...5
5b. Plants slightly flattened, distinctly divided into stem and leaf....8
8b. Archegonia at the end of the thallus, terminating its further growth, with only one developing into a sporophyte, usually surrounded at the base by a perianth.....9
9a. Rhizoids present: ........pg 232 Order Jungermanniales
 
Key to Families/Genera of Jungermanniales pg. 232
1b. Leaves ....toothed, or divided at tip into 2, 3 or 4 lobes....6
6b. Plants not as above;if bilobed, bifurcate vitta absent...7
7a. Leaves...succubous...8
8b. Leaves lobed or their margins with distinct teeth...16
16b. Leaves not complicate-bilobed...18
18a. Leaves transversely inserted on stem.. 19
19b. Leaves mostly bilobed.. 23
23a. Lobes of leaves ciliate.. p.248 Nowellia
 
Nowellia curvifolia
"Plants in loose, prostrate patches, usually green though sometimes rosy or reddish tinged, with unique leaves, on moist decaying logs, eastern North America (Conrad and Redfearn, 1979)."
 
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