Open Access

Coscinodon humilis was described by Milde from mica schist in the Passeiertal NE Merano (formerly southern Tyrolia in Austria, hence cited as Austria by Greven 1995. now Alto Adige in Italy). Limpricht (1890) regarded it as “verkümmerte Form von C. cribrosus”, and although Mönkemeyer (1927) still cited it, the species got forgotten by the time. Thus the species was no more mentioned by Corley et al (1981) in the European checklist and therefore no more included by Frey et al. (1995) in the German edition of the “Moos- und Farnpflanzen Europas”. Greven (1995) re-established the species in his treatment of Grimmia (and related genera) in Europe. Therefore Frey et al. (2006) included the species, which was, however, not keyed out. Finally Hill et al. (2006) listed it again in the new European checklist as a good species.

Aneura mirabilis is a parasitic liverwort with a chloroplast genome size of 108007 bp. In this study simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were detected using bioinformatics approch in plastid genome of Aneura mirabilis. Due to its small genome size only 19 repeats were detected showing a density of 1 SSR/5.68 kb. The length of SSRs ranged from 12 to 20 bp. Mononucleotide repeats were the most frequent repeat type (36.84%) followed by tetranucleotide repeats (31.58%). Moreover hexanucleotide repeats were absent in chloroplast genome sequence of Aneura mirabilis.

The location of Ticino in the southern Alps with an altitudinal range from 200 to more than 3000 m generates a high biodiversity of bryophytes, however, in addition, a mixture of mediterranean elements (caused by mild temperatures), atlantic elements (caused by high precipitation) and especially insubrian elements (confined to the Southern Alps) has attracted many famous bryologists over the past 150 years and make this region to a real bryological hot spot. Six of the 7 insubrian species are mainly distributed in North America. Their presence in the Southern Alps is correlated with a certain geological formation and their origin is not clear.

Comparative evaluation of antimicrobial activity of methanolic extract and phenolic compounds of a liverwort, Reboulia hemispherica was carried out by Agar well diffusion technique. The Gram positive bacteria were more sensitive than the Gram negative ones, while the fungal species were least sensitive. R. hemispherica extract exhibited best results against Staphylococcus aureus, although it was active against all tested microbes. The antimicrobial activity increased with the increase in the concentration of the extract except in Klebsiella sp. S. aureus, E. faecalis and Bacillus cereus were inhibited more by the crude methanol extract of R. hemispherica than the phenolic compounds isolated from the extract. A. niger was inhibited equally by the crude methanol extract as well as the phenolic compounds. B. subtilis, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, K. sp. and P. notatum were inhibited more by phenolic compounds than the crude methanol extract of R. hemispherica. Thus phenolic compounds of R. hemispherica should be studied further for use as antimicrobial agent.

Scanning electron microscope analyses of sporoderm of 7 species of 3 genera of Marchantiales are presented in this study. In the studied species, sporoderm exhibit a broad range of morphology and have taxonomic specificity. The structurally rigid sporoderms have specific sculpturing and characteristic patterning. Peculiar architectures are found in different taxa, which revealed that and stable architectures may be present within an order. Sporoderms usually have specific surface markings which are often one of the best parameters to identify any species.