Odontoschisma fluitans
Marchantiophyta
Odontoschisma fluitans (Cephaloziaceae)
Bog Notchwort
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Infrequent
Distinguishing Features
Scarcely seen in the rare boggy habitat in which it occurs, O. fluitans is a stringy plant with dark green-to-brown shoots up to 2 mm wide. Up close, you should be able to make out distantly-spaced leaves with two equal, round-tipped lobes and shoots often interrupted by narrow, leafless and pale branches (see image). Hand lens inspection should turn up a few underleaves.
Similar species
With distant, round-lobed and dark green-to-brown leaves in boggy habitats, this species could only be confused with the very similar Gymnocolea inflata. That species, however, produces neither the leafless branches nor underleaves so prominent in O. fluitans.
Habitat
Wet depressions in bogs and peatlands, often submerged in shallow water, in the lowland, montane, subalpine, and alpine zones
Associated species
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