Frullania oakesiana Austin
Family: Frullaniaceae
Synonyms
none regionally
NatureServe Conservation Status
G4
Distribution
Europe, Asia, eastern North America, Canada south to North Carolina and Tennessee, in the north, west to the Great Lakes Region
Habitat
Regionally restricted to Fraser fir-red spruce forests at elevations above 5,000 ft. where it occurs on bark of Abies fraseri, Acer spicatum, Sorbus americana, and shrubs "such as Vaccinium, Viburnum cassinoides, V. alnifolium, etc." (Schuster 1992, p. 193).
Brief Description and Tips for Identification
Shoot width: < 1 mm. Color: reddish brown; green in shade forms. Cell walls in leaf lobe: without intermediate thickenings. Dorsal lobe insertion: truncate. Lobules: large, about as wide as long, obscurring well over one-half the dorsal lobe.
Monoicous. Perianth surface without turbercles.
Frullania oakesiana is the only monoicous species of Frullania known to occur in Fraser fir-red spruce forests.
Salient Features
- Monoicous
- large lobules, about as wide as long, consitently obscurring well over half the dorsal lobe
- Cell walls without intermediate thickenings
- Dorsal lobe insertion truncate
- Regionally restricted to high elevation Fraser fir-red spruce forests
F. oakesiana is potentially confused with F. appalachiana based on the large size of the lobules; however, lobule size is highly variable in F. appalachiana and is otherwise a very different plant.
Habitat
Frullania oakesiana
Trunk of smooth-barked Sorbus on Roan Mountain
Frullania oakesiana
Trunk of Abies fraseri, Roan Mountain. F. asagrayana occurs in a larger mat as indicated above in red.
Habit
Frullania oakesiana
Only a few perianths are present in the material above and they are difficult to detect.
Frullania oakesiana
Perianths are rather abundant in the material above and easily dectected at 100 % view. The yellow-green liverwort admixed is Metzgeria consanguinea (=M. temperata).
Frullania oakesiana
F. oakesiana, like many other Frullania species, is unable to develop the glistening-when-dry surface sheen that is common in the regionally more abundant F. asagrayana.
Habit
Frullania oakesiana
Morphology
Frullania oakesiana
Demonstrating the monoicous condition may require careful removal of intact shoots to preserve the oragnic connection between male and felmale branches.
Frullania oakesiana
The large ventral lobule obscures more than half of the dorsal lobe.
Frullania oakesiana
Perianths have not yet formed making the monoicous condition difficult to impossible to prove in this particular dissection.
Morphology
Frullania oakesiana
Underleaves are difficult to detect in the image above and some underleaves are missing having been dislodged during the process of removing shoots adherent to bark.
Frullania oakesiana
An androecium on a short side branch
Frullania oakesiana
Inflated lobules of many Frullania species typically contain rotifers; presumably the dormant objects in the lobules above are rotifers.
Morphology
Frullania oakesiana
Cells of dorsal lobe showing smooth cell walls and oil bodies