Anthoceros

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Anthoceros
Anthoceros agrestis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Anthocerotophyta
Class: Anthocerotopsida
Order: Anthocerotales
Family: Anthocerotaceae
Genus: Anthoceros
L.
Type species
Anthoceros punctatus
Linnaeus 1753
Species

See text

Synonyms
  • Ceranthus von Linné 1758 ex Gilibert 1787 non Schreb. 1789
  • Carpoceros Dumortier 1822
  • Aspiromitus Stephani 1916b
  • Sphaerosporoceros Hässel 1988
  • Anthoceros (Sphaerosporoceros) (Hässel 1988) Cargill & Scott 1997
  • Anthoceros section Fusiformes Grolle 1976
  • Aspiromitus section Brachyanthoceros Schuster 1992

Anthoceros is a

thallus that is more or less lobed along the margins.[1]

Etymology

The name Anthoceros means 'flower horn', referring to the characteristic horn-shaped sporophytes that all hornworts produce.

Description

The spores are dark gray, dark brown or black. This distinguishes it from the related genus Phaeoceros, which produces yellow spores.[1][2] The thallus lacks air chambers and scales, and has no well defined mid rib. It has unicellular smooth rhizoids in the ventral region. It is irregularly lobed, and exhibits rare dichotomous branching. The thallus has little to no tissue differentiation, being composed of thin, compactly arranged uniform parenchymatous cells.

Anthoceros species are host to species of

heterocysts, and which are able to carry out photosynthesis.[3]
The Nostoc colonies are present on the lower ventral surface. They often grow in slime pores, mucilaginous groups of decomposed cells within the plant which open outward through a pore guarded by 2 cells. Nostoc colonies are visible as blue-green patches on the plant body.

The plants grow in moist clay soils on hills, in ditches, and in damp hollows among rocks.

Reproduction

Anthoceros species exhibit many forms of asexual reproduction. Besides fragmentation, a nearly ubiquitous form, these hornworts exhibit tubers, persistent apices, and apospory. Tubers and persistent apices can remain dormant and survive harsh conditions to form new thalli.

Apospory, a form of apomixis, involves the formation of diploid gametophyte spores directly from the tissue of the plant's sporophyte
.

Species

List of species.[4][5]

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 1179-3163
    .
  2. JSTOR 2481996
    .
  3. ^ Enderlin, C. S. and J. C. Meeks. (1983). Pure culture and reconstitution of the Anthoceros-Nostoc symbiotic association. Planta 158(2) 157-65.
  4. ^ Brinda, John C.; Atwood, John J. "The Bryophyte Nomenclator". 7 December 2022. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  5. PMID 26929706
    .
  6. ^ Ibarra-Morales, A., M. E. Muñíz, and S. Valencia. (2015). The genus Anthoceros (Anthocerotaceae, Anthocerotophyta) in Central Mexico. Phytotaxa [S.l.], v. 205, n. 4, p. 215–28.
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