Riccardia chamedryfolia
Marchantiophyta
Riccardia chamedryfolia (Aneuraceae)
Jagged Germanderwort
Green Bolt
Frequent
Distinguishing Features
Getting an eye for Riccardia chamedryfolia requires taking the time to look around at its dark green, irregularly-branched and succulent thallus that can run up to 3 cm long with individual segments to 2 mm wide. In the wet, organic-rich habitats it seems to thrive in, it grows horizontally and close to its substrate, with numerous branches of the thallus emerging from a jagged main axis like a bolt of bryological lightening. Microscopically, the presence of abundant oil bodies in its surface cells as well as the oval shape of the thallus in cross section help distinguish it from other regional species within the genus Riccardia.
Similar species
R. chamedryfolia is large enough to pass for a skinny Aneura, but that genus is unbranched or little-branched and its thallus segments are more than 2mm wide. R. chamedryfolia is much branched and the thallus segments are less than 2 mm wide. Aneura also has a characteristic turpentine smell to the freshly-rubbed thallus that is absent and Riccardia. Amongst other members of its genus, it is most similair to R. multifida on account of its similair branching, but in that species, a wing of thin tissue surrounds the thallus and oil bodies are scant, while in R. chamedryfolia, the thallus is succulent, unwinged and oil bodies are abundant in fresh material.
Habitat
Moist to wet, shady mineral soil, humus, swamps, streambanks, shorelines, and decayed wood, occasionally submerged in shallow water, in the lowland zone
Associated species
Chiloscyphus polyanthos, Pellia neesiana