creeps across the damp rotting logs
- Size
- Width: 1–3 cm
- Lifespan
- 1–3 years
- Diet
- Photosynthetic. Draws energy from sunlight. Requires consistent moisture, high humidity, and protection from direct sunlight.
- Habitat
- Damp soil, rotting logs, and stream banks in deep shade where soil stays moist, light is low, and humidity remains high.
- Range
- Found throughout North and South Islands on damp soil, rotting logs, and stream banks in shaded lowland and montane forests with high rainfall.
- Endemism
- Native
- Main Threats
- None significant but under-recorded due to small size. Localised threats include forest clearance, wetland drainage, and climate change reducing forest floor moisture.
- Population
- Not Threatened though easily overlooked due to small size. Likely under-recorded in New Zealand. More survey work needed to understand true distribution.
- Conservation Status
- Not Threatened
- Human Risk
- harmless
- Handling Note
- common liverwort, safe to handle
- Conservation Note
- Native liverwort; not assessed by NZTCS as bryophytes are generally outside the scope of current threat classifications.
- Te Ao Māori
- No recorded Māori name distinguishes lophozia liverwort from other liverworts. Liverworts generally called pūkohu or grouped with other small damp-loving plants. Tiny, pale green mats on damp soil noticed only by those who looked very closely. Tohunga. Gatherers. Ones who knew forest intimately. This liverwort was not used as medicine or dye. Too small. Too hidden. Too easy to miss. Simply part of forest. Quiet, tiny presence on damp soil. Today still there. Hidden on stream banks. On rotting logs. In shaded gullies.
It will never be seen unless looked for. Lophoziopsis excisa hides in plain sight. Lophozia liverwort has creeping, branching stems forming loose, leafy mats on damp soil. Leaves are small and rounded. With blunt, notched tip – lobed but barely. Pale green to yellowish-green. Often translucent. Whole plant is small – just few millimetres across – and blends into soil and moss. Liverwort of hidden detail. Rewards patient eye. Plant that does not want to be found.
What makes it special is hiddenness. One of hardest liverworts to find in New Zealand. Small, pale, unassuming. Blending into damp soil and surrounding moss. Can be walked past without noticing. Can be knelt right next to and still missed. But if obsessive – if down on hands and knees with hand lens and looking closely – it will be seen. Liverwort of patient observer. Rewards those who take time to look.
Leaves are small and rounded. With blunt, notched tip. Arranged in two rows along stem. Overlapping like fish scales. Underleaves or amphigastria present but tiny. Often hidden.
Reproduction happens by spores released from capsules on short stalks. It also reproduces asexually via gemmae.
To find lophozia liverwort is to get down on hands and knees. Look closely at damp soil. Damp soil is brown. Liverwort is there. Tiny and pale green. Leafy mat no bigger than fingernail. Does not know it is hard to find. Does not know it rewards patient eyes.
It just grows. That is what liverworts do. And that seems to be enough.