[1] "no GBIF data to display"Scapania brevicaulis
Marchantiophyta
Scapania brevicaulis (Scapaniaceae)
Short Stemmed Earwort
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Rare
Distinguishing Features
Scapania brevicaulis is a rare and northern Arctic-alpine species, where it grows as green-to-brown leafy shoots to 5 cm long and 4 mm wide. While the upper lobe is wider than long and 1/2-to-3/4ths the size of the lower lobe, which is longer than wide, both have typically smooth margins and subtley-pointed lobe apices. The lobes converge along an acute and linear keel that is 1/3-to-2/3rds the length on the lower lobe. Brown asexual reproductive bodies ("gemmae") are typically present and abundant along the margins of leaves at the shoot tip. Confident identication of this species will require a microscope to see the very thick and bulging cell walls of the leaf as well as the football-like shape of the gemmae.
Similar species
S. kaurinii is very similair in size, shape, form, colour and habitat. Under the microscope however, its cell walls to not bulge convexly into the cell as they do in S. brevicaulis.
Habitat
On calcareous soil in alpine and northern tundra
Associated species
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