Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Specimen #14 Marchantia polymorpha

                                                    Figure 1: Growing on the side of a rock cliff

                                            Figure 2: Close up of the thallus pores
Name: Marchantia polymorpha
Family: Marchantiaceae

Common Name: Umbrella liverwort 
Collection Date:  September 14, 2011
Habitat: On the side of a rock wall
Location: South Chagrin Reservation
Description: "Thalli 4-6cm long, pale to dark green, pores barrell-shappped, on damp soil, rocks, throughout North America (Conrad and Redfearn, 1979)."
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
5a. Plants strongly flattened without distinction between stem and leaf... 6
6a. Opaque thallus.. rhizoids of two kinds.. sporophyte capsule not dividing regularly into four valves... p.239 Order Marchantiales
 
Key to Genera
1a. Pores visible without lens... 8
8a.Thalli with open or half cups of disc-shaped gemmae on the thallus; archegonia on the underside of long-fingered umbrellas.. 9
9a. Gemmae cups round, fringed; thalli with thin scales along the margin beneath; air pores elliptic.. (p.284) Marchantia

Key to Species
1a. Thallus about 1cm wide, without schlerenchymatous cells; gemmae cups with surface papillae; ventral scales in 6 or more rows.. Marchantia polymorpha

*Note: This liverwort did not have gemmae cups or the fingered umbrella like they normally exibt when I found it, but I still think it is Marchantia polymorpha.  I think I may have found it before it had developed those features.

Links: 
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/nursery-weeds/weedspeciespage/liverwort/liverwort_page.html 
http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/moss/marchantia.html 
http://www.microview.org.uk/millennium/Pages/marchantia_polymorpha.htm 

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