''Treubia lacunosa'' is a species of

liverwort The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of g ...

in the family

Treubiaceae Treubiaceae is a family of liverworts in the order Treubiales.Crandall-Stotler, Barbara. & Stotler, Raymond E. "Morphology and classification of the Marchantiophyta". page 63 ''in'' A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), ''Bryophyte Biology ...

that is found across

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in moist shady areas on logs or soil. The organism is relatively complex for a liverwort, and hosts

endosymbiotic An ''endosymbiont'' or ''endobiont'' is any organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism most often, though not always, in a mutualistic relationship. (The term endosymbiosis is from the Greek: ἔνδον ''endon'' "within" ...

fungi which provide it with growth-inhibiting nutrients.

Description

''Treubia lacunosa'' grows flat along the ground with a single fleshy but brittle axis. Two rows of lobes extend laterally outwards from this axis, and there are small upright lobules at the base of each. The entire liverwort is around 1.5 cm wide and 4–9 cm long. There are mucus-covered hairs around the

rhizoids Rhizoids are protuberances that extend from the lower epidermal cells of bryophytes and algae. They are similar in structure and function to the root hairs of vascular land plants. Similar structures are formed by some fungi. Rhizoids may be unic ...

and sex organs. The

sporophyte A sporophyte () is the diploid multicellular stage in the life cycle of a plant or alga which produces asexual spores. This stage alternates with a multicellular haploid gametophyte phase. Life cycle The sporophyte develops from the zygote pr ...

rises from around the apex of the lobe, and has a very large

seta In biology, setae (singular seta ; from the Latin word for "bristle") are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms. Animal setae Protostomes Annelid setae are stiff bristles present on the body. Th ...

and relatively small foot.

Taxonomy

The diversity of ''Treubia lacunosa'' may actually consist of two species, since there are two separate populations of the species in New Zealand. One grows primarily in sheltered forest areas, while the other is found in more open and exposed habitats. Molecular sequencing confirmed that there is a greater divergence between these populations than between other unrelated species, such as '' T. tasmanica'' and '' T. scapanioides''. The new species would have the proposed name of ''

Treubia lacunosoides ''Treubia'' is a genus of Marchantiophyta, liverworts in the Family (biology), family Treubiaceae.Crandall-Stotler, Barbara. & Stotler, Raymond E. (2000). "Morphology and classification of the Marchantiophyta". pages 21–70 ''in'' A. Jonath ...

''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17265102 Treubiales Flora of New Zealand