Frullania Raddi

Frullania Raddi, Jung. Etrusc., Soc. ital. di Modena, 1820; Syn. Hep., 1845; Spruce, Hep. Amaz. et And., 1885; Schiffn., Nat. Pfl., i, 1893; Steph., Spec. Hep., iv, 1910; Verd., de Frull., i, 1928.

Plants small to large, creeping, matted or semi-tufted, red-brown to very dark or blackish, olive or pale green, sometimes tinted rose.

Stems regularly to irregularly pinnately or bi-pinnately branched, branches laterally arising from axils of the leaves. Leaves incubous, alternate, shortly inserted, usually with a ligulate or rounded dorsal appendix, entire, sub-orbicular, ovate or oval, ventral lobe or lobule helmet-shaped, campanulate, or cylindrical-clavate opening downwards, or narrowed and extended downwards in a curve, on the side further from the stem, the opening ± obliquely facing the stem; sometimes explanate. Stylus sometimes present between the lobule and the stem. Stipules always present, variously shaped with rhizoids only rarely adhering. Cells small to medium, sometimes vittate at base of leaf, walls often sinuous. Invol. leaves larger, lobule always explanate, with or without lateral laciniae, invol. stipule may be connate on both sides with leaves. Perianth free, emergent or exserted, obovate to oblong, tri- or tetragonous (third angle postical), maybe with supplementary keels, margins waved, straight or toothed; inflated, cylindrical, sub-spherical or ventrally concave, rough or smooth, contracted at the apex to a tubular beak, irregularly ruptured by the exsertion of the capsule. Capsule on a short stalk, elaters unispiral, adhering to the capsule valves after dehiscence. ♂ inflorescence lateral, globose to oblong, bracts saccate, closely imbricate, sub-equally bi-lobed.

The genus is divided into at least seven sub-genera. Of these, certainly two are represented in New Zealand: Trachycolea Spruce and Diastoloba, Spruce. In the sub-genus Chonanthelia Spruce, the lobule is joined to the leaf by a wide carina, more or less parallel to the stem, thus making the dorsal side of the lobule much larger than the ventral. Stephani places his F. quinqueplicata (F. pentapleura) in this division (perhaps on account of the two ventral keels as given in Spruce's original diagnosis), and he suggests ^* that F. kirkii might also be placed here. However, perhaps all our species are just as suitably accommodated in Trachycolea.