Published March 4, 2026 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Lejeunea (sect. Inflatolejeunea) G. E. Lee & Gradst., comb. et stat. nov.

  • 1. Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia
  • 2. Meise Botanic Garden, Meise, Belgium
  • 3. Botany Unit, Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  • 4. Senckenberg Institute for Plant Form and Function (SIP), Jena, Germany & Institute of Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
  • 5. Mittlere Letten 11, Herdwangen-Schönach, Germany
  • 6. Botany Department, Eszterházy Károly Catholic University, Eger, Hungary

Description

[Clade VIII]

Lejeunea sect. Inflatolejeunea(S. W. Arnell) G. E. Lee & Gradst. comb. et stat. nov.

Inflatolejeunea S. W. Arnell (Arnell 1953: 173)

Type species

Lejeunea capensis Gottsche.

Description

Plants glossy pale green, delicate, ca 0.5–1 mm wide. Stems with 7 rows of epidermal cells surrounding 5–12 rows of smaller medullary cells. Leaf cells with rather small trigones, with or without intermediate cell wall thickenings. Cuticle punctate-papillose. Oil bodies finely granular, ca 3–10 per cell, colourless. Male bracteoles restricted to the base of the male spike or absent. Gynoecial innovations frequently fertile. Perianths terete, eplicate. Asexual reproduction sometimes occurs by shoot fragmentation (L. globosiflora).

Distribution

Afro-American.

Species

Lejeunea capensis, L. cyathophora Mitt., L. globosiflora (Steph.) Steph.

Further species (not sequenced)

Lejeunea pluridichotoma Schust., nom. inval.

Notes

The small, glossy, greenish plants with a finely punctate-papillose cuticle, granular oil bodies and inflated, eplicate perianths are characteristic of sect. Inflatolejeunea. Although oil bodies in the section are usually described as being finely granular, Jungermannia - type (Arnell 1963; Schuster 1992; Gradstein and Cuvertino 2015), Reiner-Drehwald and Schäfer-Verwimp (2008) reported subhomogeneous oil bodies in L. capensis. As Jungermannia - type oil bodies may turn homogeneous upon degeneration following drying of the plants (Gradstein et al. 2001), the report of subhomogeneous oil bodies in L. capensis may have been based on degenerated oil bodies.

References

Arnell (1963), Schuster (1992), Reiner-Drehwald and Schäfer-Verwimp (2008), Gradstein and Cuvertino (2015).

Notes

Published as part of Lee, Gaik Ee, Gradstein, S. Robbert, He, Xiaolan, Bechteler, Julia, Schäfer-Verwimp, Alfons & Pócs, Tamás, 2026, An infrageneric classification of the genus Lejeunea (Marchantiophyta: Lejeuneaceae) using molecular phylogeny and morphology, pp. 123-141 in Plant Ecology and Evolution 159 (1) on pages 123-141, DOI: 10.5091/plecevo.170279

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Scientific name authorship
G. E. Lee & Gradst.
Kingdom
Plantae
Phylum
Marchantiophyta
Order
Lejeuneales
Family
Lejeuneaceae
Genus
Lejeunea
Taxon rank
section

References

  • Arnell SW (1953) New species of Hepaticae from South Africa. Revue Bryologique et Lichénologique 23: 173–179.
  • Arnell SW (1963) Hepaticae of South Africa. Swedish Natural Science Research Council, Stockholm.
  • Schuster RM (1992) The oil-bodies of the Hepaticae. II. Lejeuneaceae (Part 2). Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory 72: 163–359.
  • Gradstein SR, Cuvertino J (2015) Observations on the liverwort flora of the surroundings of Santiago, central Chile. Cryptogamie, Bryologie 36: 129–141. https://doi.org/10.7872/cryb.v36.iss2.2015.129
  • Reiner-Drehwald ME, Schäfer-Verwimp A (2008) On Inflatolejeunea, Lejeunea species with eplicate perianths and Lejeunea talamancensis sp. nov. from Costa Rica (Lejeuneaceae). Nova Hedwigia 87: 387–420. https://doi.org/10.1127/0029-5035/2008/0087-0387
  • Gradstein SR, Churchill SP, Salazar-Allen N (2001) Guide to the Bryophytes of Tropical America. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden 86: 1–577.