Radula aneurismalis
(Hook.f. & Taylor) GottscheYellow-green, forming mats or interspersed among other bryophytes, dioicous. Specialised asexual propagules absent. Leaves all of a similar form and showing continuity in size or some branches composed entirely of much smaller and differentiated microphyll leaves, sometimes entire plant composed of these leaves. Microphyll leaves ovate, with lobule to c. 0.8 of lobe area, 175–275 μm long, 150–350 μm wide, remote to imbricate; lobe entire or crenulate; lobule rectangular, 150–250 μm long, 100–150 μm wide, attached to lobe by curving and strongly inflated keel that continues seamlessly the curve of adjacent lobe margin, with rounded or acute apex sometimes projecting beyond lobe margin, often with a free margin that extends over the ventral branch surface. Normal leaves when present elliptic, oblong or ovate, 475–1200 μm long, 425–1000 μm wide, rounded at apex, imbricate, inserted at dorsal mid-line leaving no continuous row of cells uninterrupted by leaf insertions, attached to lobule by curved and strongly inflated keel; lobe margin entire or crenulate, not descending below the level of the keel and not forming a notch at intersection, but instead seamlessly continuing the curve of the keel; lobule truncate-ovate to rectangular, 1/5–1/3 of lobe area on leading shoot, 275–650 μm long, 150–325 μm wide, rounded at each corner of the free margin and usually scalloped between or occasionally straight, fused along stem and so not extending over ventral stem surface. Leaf lobe cells oblong, rounded-quadrate or rounded-polygonal, not forming a vitta, 12–25 μm long, 12–18 μm wide, thin-walled, with distinct concave trigones, smooth, with a single oil body; oil bodies light brown, botryoidal. Perianth 1500–2800 μm long, 900–1175 μm wide.
HSF, HNF. On tree trunks and boulders in montane wet sclerophyll forest and rainforest in the Otway, Yarra and Strzelecki Ranges and East Gippsland. Also, New South Wales, Tasmania, Macquarie Island, and New Zealand.
This species can be immediately recognised by the microphyllous branches that bear distinctly smaller leaves that have lobules that are closer in size to the lobe than in the larger leaves. In the absence of these branches, this species is still distinctive and easily distinguished by the lobules that on normal leaves are rectangular to ovate-truncate with a distinctly inflated keel, but without a free margin near the stem that overlaps the ventral surface of the stem. The cells also contain a single botryoidal oil body, which differs from the other Victorian species except R. acutiloba, which has lobe margins with conspicuous gemmae.
Spinning