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Re: [SG] shadegardens Digest - 29 Sep 1998 to 30 Sep 1998 (#1998-299)

>         Liverworts are Hepatica. Here locally we have two species. The sharp lobe
> and the little round lobed leaf. There are quite a few species around the
> world in Europe and Asia, Japan. There is even an American Hepatica
> Association.
>         They are so called because of the shape of the lobed leaves resembling a
> human liver in outline. Another back to the Doctrine of Signatures.. If a
> plant looks like a human part then it was used for treating that part of
> the body in medicine. Remember an old cross the counter remedy called Sal
> Hepatica (in a brown bottle, of course)? One of the ingredients was extract
> of hepatica.

Gene, I don't think I've ever heard Hepatica referred to as a "liverwort",
though the name "hepatica" does refer to the liver-shaped leaf (well,
liver shaped with a bit of imagination!).  The liverworts are
bryophytes... moss relatives, with no real roots, no phloem and xylem (the
vascular tissues), and reproducing by spores, not seeds (and therefore, no
flowers).  There are also leafy liverworts that are mainly tropical, and
hard to tell from true mosses unless you can get a good look at the
spore-bearing structures. (The leafy liverworts are mainly tropical.)


Marchantia polymorpha is the common liverwort you get shown in biology
classes...it has spore-bearing structures (sporangiophores) that look like
little umbrellas.  Images at http://www.eou.edu/~kantell/img1032.jpg and
gopher://wiscinfo.wisc.edu:2070/I9/.image/.bot/.130/Bryophytes/Hepatophyta_Images/Marchantia_Images/Vegetative_views/Marchantia_habit


My favorite is Conocephalum, which looks like the thallus (the flat
ribbony thing that functions as both stem and leaf) is "lizardskin
pattern".  There's a closeup at
http://ucjeps.herb.berkeley.edu/bryolab/tree/images/conocephalum.200.gif

Conocephalum has an interesting odor when crushed... sort of sweet
licorice with floral.

Kay Lancaster  kay@fern.com
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