Lophocolea heterophylla
Marchantiophyta
Lophocolea heterophylla (Lophocoleaceae)
Various-leaved Crestwort
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Frequent
Distinguishing Features
Found on a variety of substrates in moist habitats, L. heterophylla grows tightly appressed and creeping, its light-to-dark green leaves spreading out like flags 90 degrees from the stem to form leafy shoots about 3 mm wide by many centimeters long. As implied by the species name, the shallowly bilobed leaves are quite variable along the length of the stem, with some leaves seemingly unlobed, some sharply bilobed and the rest falling somewhere in between. Underleaves are narrowly bilobed and can be seen with a handlens if not obscured by fine hairs.
Similar species
Species of Lophozia and Lophoziopsis have superficially similair leaves, but leaves in those species are not attached at their base along the long axis of the stem as in L. bidentata, nor do they have underleaves. Geocalyx graveolens does can have nearly identical leaf attachment and shape, but its leaves are consistent in shape along the stem and its lobe tips are always triangular, while leaves of L. heterophylla are variable in shape as you move along the stem, often without lobes or having lobes that are more blunt or more acute than those found in Geocalyx. Species of Mesoptychia (especially M. gillmanii) can show similair leaf shape, but leaves in that genus are attached across the axis of the stem, not along it, and underleaves are unlobed, whereas in L. heterophylla, they are bilobed. Within its genus, L. minor is smaller and has leaves with regularly rounded lobes covered in asexual spores ("gemmae"), while L. heterophylla has leaves that vary in form as you move along the stem and lacks gemmae. L. bidentata is consistently sharply-lobed and leaf shape does not vary along the length of the stem.
Habitat
Moist to wet, often shady humus, tree trunks, and decayed wood in the lowland, montane, and subalpine zones
Associated species
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