Plant Guide > Mosses and Lichens > Liverworts or Hepatics > Genus Bazzania

Genus Bazzania

Genus BazzaniaGenus BAZZANIA, Gr. and Benn.

The vegetative part of these plants grows in large mats, bright or dark green; the branching stems are 2 to 4 inches long, mostly creeping and bearing many long whip-like shoots with Minute leaves and few whitish root-hairs.

The leaves are egg-shaped, over-lapping and embracing the stem half-way around, they are narrowed to the apex which is bluntly three-to five-toothed. The leaf-cells are six-sided and opaque. The male and female flowers are on separate plants (dioicous). The perianth is white and tubular with slight folds in the wall and splits open at one side, the leaves at the base (bracts) are very small, scale-like and slightly toothed.

The genus Bazzania may be easily distinguished from all other genera by the leaves which are dark green, three-toothed and have the anterior margin of each leaf lapping the posterior margin of the leaf in front.

The genus was named for M. Bazzani, an Italian professor of anatomy.

Bazzania Trilobata Lichen