On the hypothesis of dioicous – monoicous species pairs in the Mniaceae (Bryophyta); morphology, sexual condition and distiribution

Abstract

Abstract Some early observations seemed to show that, in the Mniaceae, the doubling of the chromo-some set affects a change from dioicous to monoicous condition, larger size of the gametophyte including larger leaf cell size, and to a wider range of the monoicous counterpart. The Mniaceae taxa are divided into four groups based on their sexual condition and morphology. 1. Dioicous – monoicous counterparts which can be distinguished by morphological characters, 2. Dioicous – monoicous taxa which have no morphological, deviating characters, 3. Monoicous species mostly with diploid chromosome number for which no dioicous counterpart is known, and 4. The taxa in Mniaceae with only dioicous plants. Most of the monoicous species of the Mniaceae have wide ranges, but a few of them are endemics in geographically isolated areas. The dioicous species have either a wide holarctic range or a limited range in the forested areas of temperate and meridional North America, Europe and SE Asia, or in subtropical Asia. Some of the monoicous species are evidently autodiploids and a few of them are allopolyploids from cross-sections of two species. Quite recently, several new possible dioicous – monoicous relationships have been discovered.