Gottschelia (Gottscheliaceae, Marchantiophyta) in Indochina

Abstract

Gottschelia, collected for the first time in Indochina, inspired an attempt to review the genus phylogeny to identify a more precise position of Indochinese plants. The genetic distance between African and Asian populations of G. schizopleura sensu lato was confirmed. The two groups should be treated as different species. A new combination, G. microphylla comb. nov., has been proposed for Asian plants. Aside from molecular genetics, distinguishing this species from the presumable strictly African G. schizopleura is also possible by morphological characteristics, as well as by its distribution. At the same time, at least three groups are distinguished among Asian haplotypes of G. microphylla, each of which can be interpreted as a species or, at least, subspecies. A morphological description, intravital photographs of the general habitat, and details of the morphological structures are provided. The position of Gottschelia in the phylogenetic schema of Jungermanniales does not allow us to attribute it to any of the known families and forces us to describe a new family, Gottscheliaceae, which is phylogenetically somewhat related to the Chaetophyllopsidaceae re-evaluated here and very different from Gottscheliaceae morphologically.

Keywords: Chaetophyllopsis; ITS1-2; Southeast Asia; Vietnam; geographical species concept; liverworts; rbcL; taxonomy; trnG-intron; trnL-F.

Figure 1

The phylogram for the Jungermanniidae obtained from the maximum likelihood approach based on rbcL + trnL-F cpDNA. Bootstrap support values and posterior probabilities more than 50% (0.50) are indicated. The branches stretched from nodes with 100% bootstrap support values and 1.00 posterior probabilities are in bold. A—order Jungermanniales, B—order Porellales, and C—order Ptilidiales.

Figure 2

Statistical parsimony network for the rbcL cpDNA (451 base pairs) for the genus Gottschelia. Solid points indicate missing haplotypes. The specimen vouchers, according to Table 2, are marked.

Figure 3

The distribution of pairwise p-distances between rbcL sequences (451 b.p.) of the genus Gottschelia specimens. Dist. Dt—distance value, and Nbr—number of runs.

Figure 4

Gottschelia microphylla (Nees) Bakalin, Vilnet, Klimova et S.S. Choi: (A) Perianthous shoot, dorsal view. (B) Part of shoot, dorsal view. (C) Part of shoot, ventral view. (D–I) Leaves, (J) perianth cross-section in its middle part, and (K,L) female bracts. Scales: a—2 mm for (A), b—2 mm for (B,C), c—1 mm for (D–I,K,L), and d—100 µm for (J). All from V-88-15-23 (VBGI, HN).

Figure 5

Gottschelia microphylla (Nees) Bakalin, Vilnet, Klimova et S.S. Choi: (A) Mat of Gottschelia microphylla covering rocks in natural conditions. (B) Mat with perianthous shoots in dry condition. (C) Shoots, dorsal view. (D) Fragment of perianthous shoot, dorsal view. (E) Perianthous shoots in a mat, dorsal view. Scales: 5 mm for (A,B) and 2 mm for (C–E). (B,D) From V-88-15-23, and (C,E) from V-88-7-23 (VBGI, NH).

Figure 6

Gottschelia microphylla (Nees) Bakalin, Vilnet, Klimova et S.S. Choi: (A–C) Leaves, curled up and torn under the slide. (D) Perianth mouth armature. (E) Perianth cells in lower part. (F) Stem cross-section, fragment. (G) Leaf cells along leaf margin. (H,I,L) Mid-leaf cells with oil bodies. (J) Papillose cuticle in lower part of the leaf. (K) Papillose cuticle in the mid-leaf. Scales: 1 mm for (A–C), 3 mm for (F), 100 µm for (D–K), and 50 µm for (L). (A–F,I–K) From V-88-15-23, and (G,H) from V-88-6-23 (VBGI, NH).