Wednesday 25 March 2015

Jungermannia?

I put the '?' in the title to cover myself in case it's not a Jungermannia.

This is another one from Merthyr Common last week. It was growing as a dense patch on a wet, shady  rock face (sandstone/shale, fairly base rich).




I thought this might be J. pumila. This size is about right (stems 1.5-2mm across) and it is not aromatic (verified by Liz who has a better sense of smell than me). However, I can't find any fertile material, so perhaps it is not possible to confirm it is this species and not J. atrovirens, or something else entirely.

Comments welcome, thanks.

5 comments:

  1. Looks like Jungermannia to me and it appears there are some male shoots, but I can't go beyond that from the images sorry

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  2. Thanks Barry. Fortunately I have found a second sample, from elsewhere at the site, and this one is fertile with plenty of perianths and a few sporophytes. It took me a while, but I eventually found tiny male organs on the same shoots as the perianths, so therefore it is paroecious and presumably must be J. pumila.

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  3. Excellent - a nice record of a species that seems to be restricted to the northern margins of the county, but cant help thinking it must be present in the central valleys too?

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  4. Are you sure this plant is the same as your J pumila? Its leaves are rounded and the insertion is very narrow, so this looks rather more like J sphaerocarpa or J obovata. Are there any pigmented rhizoids?

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  5. Ooh right. I'm away for a couple of weeks so will have to look into this when I get home. Thanks.

    The plants were a few hundred metres apart and in slightly different habitats, so could well be different species.

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