Metzgeria
Metzgeria furcata
Metzgeria is a genus thal solver, ie non- exfoliated liverworts. The genus is named in the Breisgau to the engraver Johann Baptist butcher from Staufen.
Features
The thalli of the mosses of this family are, apart from the ever present midrib, only one cell layer thick. You are ribbon-like linear in shape and branch dichotomously. Often the thalli, at least at the edges and the midrib, hairy or ciliate.
Form on the midrib on the underside of the thalli short, curved side branches on which the spherical antheridia and archegonia are. The capsules are embedded in an entity resulting from the archegonium, hairy calyptra.
Many species, however, multiply vegetatively by sprouting on Thallusrand, especially in the front parts.
Species
The genus includes about 100 species.
The distribution area of the genus lies in the tropics of the southern hemisphere. In Europe, only the following species occur:
- Wide Hedgehog hood moss ( Metzgeria conjugata ), a common and conspicuous nature of mountains and highlands.
- Metzgeria fruticulosa
- Ordinary hedgehog hood moss ( Metzgeria furcata )
- Metzgeria leptoneura ( in Europe only in the British Isles, Ireland and the Faroe Islands )
- Metzgeria simplex ( is incorporated in Metzgeria conjugata )
- Metzgeria temperata