Mitthyridium perundulatum

Click the yellow dot to see these synapomorphies (click any yellow dot to see a clade's characters)

Gemmae characters: gemmae smooth

Margin characters: number of border cell columns evolves from 7 to 30+; margin involute/constricted

Leaf characters: leaf tip rhizoids present

Indel characters: indel 1, 2, 6 and 8 evolve.

Mitthyridium perundulatum

Range Map

This clade is common throughout Eastern tropical Australia and in Papua New Guinea

Description

Lineage: Mitthyridium perundulatum

Latin name: Mitthyridium perundulatum (Broth.) Robinson
Synonyms:
Syrrhopodon perundulatus Broth.

General description:
Plants medium and usually yellow-green in color. Branches short on average 1-2 cm long. Leaves 2-2.5 mm long and 1.0 mm wide with spreading shoulders. The lamina is broadly acuminate tapering into a narrow, subulate apex that can often be mildly flared or expanded (and bearing gemmae). Stereome (border of hyaline cells) is narrow and restricted to the base of the leaf. The margin is consistently serrate along the leaf from just above the cancellinae to the apex. Laminal cells small (5-7 mm wide). Cancellinae typically occupying 1/4 leaf length and composed of 15-17 cell columns. Sporophytes common in Malaysian material though unknown from Australian material.

Diagnostic phylogenetic characters: [move the cursor over the image to view the morphological matrix]
This group is one of the more easily distinguished among the "luteum complex" for several reasons. This group has a higher ratio of cancellinae to lamina than its closest relatives (1/4 vs. 1/5-1/7). The group is marked by a subulate apex. Its lamina is conspicuously apapillose, or minutely papillose. The group has both an adaxial and abaxial epidermis.

Diagnostic phylogenetic characters (synapomorphies and/or autapomorphies) were assessed by optimizing via ACCTRAN morphological characters to the 80 taxon total evidence phylogeny decribed in the Phylomonography&Mitthyridium section bulleted above.

General phylogenetic characteristics of the "luteum complex":
All of the groups in this linear leaf "luteum complex" (subluteum, jungquilianum, luteum, and perundulatum) except perundulatum have small cancellinae that occupy no more than 1/5-1/7 the total leaf length. All have state 1 for the shape of the transition from cancellinae to lamina. All except luteum have extensive serrations along the leaf margin. All have very few border cell columns (approximately 7 or less). All except perundulatum have a border that does not widen into the stereome characteristic of Mitthyridium until the very base of the leaf (state 5 or 6). All except perundulatum have an acute leaf apex.