Relationship between Sex Distribution and Sporophyte Production in Pleurozium schreberi (Brid.) Mitt.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The distribution of perigonia, perichaetia, and sporophytes of Pleurozium schreberi has been investigated in Britain and in some other areas. Fruiting populations are widespread in a zone extending from northern Scotland across southern Scandinavia, but are rare in southern Britain, and appear to be infrequent in many other parts of western Europe. Less information is available outside western Europe: fruiting collections have been examined from scattered localities throughout much of the species' northern circumpolar range, but there is no evidence of areas where they are abundant. The rarity of sporophytes is correlated with a rarity of plants bearing male inflorescences. Barren specimens normally comprised only female and sterile plants, while most fruiting specimens were bisexual but contained more female than male stems. Female plants are abundant throughout Great Britain, but plants with male inflorescences appear to be widespread only in northern Scotland and in East Anglia. The latter area is unusual in that sporophyte production fails in many bisexual colonies. Sporophyte production was stimulated experimentally by transplanting male plants from East Anglia into female populations in the West Midlands. The male plants spread vegetatively within the female colonies, and perigonia developed during six successive years. At an East Anglian station sporophytes developed after material was transplanted between unisexual male and female colonies only 10 m apart.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: