Chiloscyphus sp.

Cotter River, ACT

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Identification history

Chiloscyphus sp.	27 May 2016	MichaelMulvaney
Chiloscyphus	27 May 2016	Heino
Unidentified	26 May 2016	KenT

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User's notes

The old mossy log that isn't covered in moss

2 comments

Heino wrote:

27 May 2016

Your main photo shows a couple of sporophytes (i.e. stems + spore capsules) of a leafy liverwort. The capsules have split, via four dehiscence lines, and four the segments have opened out to expose the spores for wind dispersal. In another photo you see a sporophyte shortly after emerging from its protective membrane. In that photo the capsule is a small black ball and you see a remnant of the protective membrane around the base of the stalk (just like a volva around a mushroom stalk). In leafy liverworts the spore capsule matures on the leafy plant and the mature spore capsule is raised on a flimsy, translucent stalk, via cell expansion. After perhaps a day or so the sporophyte collapses. In mosses you often see spore capsules on a stems, but here the stem builds slowly by cell addition and is robust and opaque, green initially (for early on it photosynthesizes) and brown later. The spore capsule matures atop the stem. Liverworts are examples or bryophytes and there is an elementary account of the different bryophytes at: http://www.cpbr.gov.au/bryophyte/what-is-bryophyte.html

CCargill wrote:

27 May 2016

I agree with Heino's identification, that it looks to be a Chiloscyphus and is probably the common C. semiteres, but this would need to be confirmed using a key to leafy liverworts.

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