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14. Lophogyne Tulasne

Lophogyne Tulasne, Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot. III, 11: 90, 99 (1849).

Roots closely attached to rock or partly floating, ribbon-like, up to 5 cm long; stems crustose, developing along edges of root, often hidden in leaf bases. Leaves with swollen bases which coalesce with stem; leaf blades finely dissected or repeatedly forked with capillary ultimate segments. Spathellas club-shaped or apically 2-lipped, up to 7 mm long, embedded in leaf bases when young. Flowers solitary, arising in clefts in the thallous stems; pedicels up to 2 cm long; tepals 2--5, up to 2.5 mm long, in one complete or incomplete whorl, lanceolate to linear, acute; stamens 2--4, free; anthers sometimes spirally wound when dry; anthers dehiscing introrsely; pollen in monads. Capsules ellipsoidal to ovoid, up to 4.5 mm long, inserted subobliquely on  pedicel; valves equal, each with 3 ribs; stigmas ± 1 mm long, flattened with a serrate or lobed apex, resembling a cock's comb, persisting in fruit. Two spp., L. arculifera Tulasne & Weddell and L. helicandra Tulasne, eastern C Brazil. Both species often grow in the same cataract but are more or less ecologically distinct.

 

Subfam. Podostemoideae

Lophogyne helicandra. A Flowering shoot (1 mm). B Flower (0.5 mm).

Cook & Rutishauser 2007

 
       
    Copyright Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zurich