Acrobolbus cinerascens
(Lehm. & Lindenb.) BastowMats forming interwoven mats, dull, greyish to yellowish or light green, water-repellent. Stems creeping, coarsely papillose, often becoming flagelliform toward tips; branches emerging from stems laterally and not associated with unlobed leaves. Specialised asexual propagules absent. Rhizoids scattered on ventral stem, or arising from basal cells of leaves and underleaves. Leaves oblong-ovate to obovate in outline, asymmetrically bilobed and laxly conduplicate-folded, 475–1400 μm long, 350–1025 μm wide, brittle, fleshy in appearance, wide-spreading or squarrose to oriented upwards away from substrate; lobes 0.4–0.6 length of leaf, dorsal lobe often smaller, acute or apiculate, separated by a rounded to acute sinus, crenulate by bulging cells. Underleaves present, much smaller than lateral leaves, unlobed, triangular, acute to acuminate, crenulate by bulging cells. Leaf cells polygonal, 20–50 μm long, 20–43 μm wide, with several cylindric papillae centered over lumen, but not extending over cell walls, thin-walled, with distinct trigones, with 1–3 oil bodies; oil bodies spherical, ellipsoid or reniform, brown, granular. Androecia with 2–5 pairs of bracts, each with 1–2 antheridia. Capsule cylindric, 2–3-stratose. Elaters bispiral, becoming sporadically 3-spiral. Spores with numerous mesa-like projections.
WPro, HSF, VAlp. Rarely recorded in Victoria, where currently known from rainforest and in wet riparian vegetation in the Yarra Ranges, on the slopes of the Baw Baw Plateau and Wilsons Promontory. Also, Tasmania, Macquarie Island and New Zealand.
Australian populations belong to var. cinerascens. Variety marginans J.J.Engel is endemic to New Zealand and is most reliably distinguished from var. cinerascens based on the cell papillae that extend over cell walls and trigones, and are hemispherical and mamillate (Engel & Glenny 2019).
Engel, J.J. & Glenny, D. (2008). A Flora of the Liverworts and Hornworts of New Zealand. Volume 1. Missouri Botanical Garden Press: St Louis.
Spinning