Ambuchanania leucobryoides
Ambuchanania leucobryoides ( Syn: Sphagnum leucobryoides ) is an endemic in Tasmania moss. It is known only from a few localities, and was only discovered in 1988. The whitish- green, in the appearance of the peat mosses ( Sphagnum) similar moss grows mainly underground, in wet sand. Only the head appear at the soil surface. The species is the only one of the family of Ambuchananiaceae in the order of Ambuchananiales.
Distribution and habitat
Ambuchanania leucobryoides grows exclusively in south-west Tasmania and here is known only from two regions on the Wallaby Bay near Port Davey and the Jane River south of Lake St. Clair. On the Wallaby Bay, the growing area of the holotype, the moss grows in zoom purged from adjacent slopes and deposited, flat, quartz-rich and almost vegetation-free sands. The annual rainfall is about 2000 mm per year. The white sand is always wet and often are additionally covered with a film of water flowing over the surface. The vegetation of the area is formed from sedges with the button grass ( Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus ) on peaty soils with low pH values between 3.5 and 5.5. At the Jane River moss grows in sedges on humic soils between niedrigwüchsigen sedges of the genus Oreobolus.
Features
Ambuchanania leucobryoides resembles in habit the peat moss. The plants produce up to 2 centimeters long sparsely branched and whitish- green stems, with only the head sticking out of the ground; the main part of the plant growing underground. The stems do not have as peat mosses on a cylinder of strengthening tissue ( sclerenchyma cells ). The twigs are individually as opposed to the species of the genus Sphagnum on stems and are not bundled into so-called fascicles. The leaves are conspicuously large. The Astblättchen measure up to 4.3 mm in length, those of the short branches up to 8.6 millimeter. They are places two layers, those of the peat moss are but a single layer as this made up of different cell types: the most water-filled Hyalocyten and from living chloroplast Chlorocyten. To anchor the plants form rhizoids. In the genus Sphagnum is known only from a single epiphytic Torfmoosart. The female reproductive organs are formed only at the project from the head substrate, while the male reproductive organs sit below the female side of the stems.
System
The moss species was only discovered in 1988 and 1990 as sphagnum leucobryoides T.Yamag. , Seppelt & Z.Iwats. described. 1999, the new genus Ambuchanania Seppelt & HACrum was introduced for this type due to its significantly different morphological characteristics from those of the species of the genus Sphagnum. It is run in a separate family Ambuchananiaceae in as a separate order Ambuchananiales within the Sphagnopsida. Molecular biological analysis based on 26S rDNA sequences confirmed in 2003, the genus Ambuchanania as a sister group of the genus Sphagnum ( peat moss ) in the class of Sphagnopsida.
Hazard and status
Ambuchanania leucobryoides is due to its geographical restriction and the small number of about five localities in the Red List of globally threatened mosses out as vulnerable ( VU = Vulnerable ). After "The Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 " Tasmania, the moss is classified as rare and protected accordingly. The sources of risk are primarily in the intense burning of the surrounding sedge.