umbrellas up on damp sunny stream banks

Size
Width: 2–5 cm
Lifespan
3–7 years
Diet
Photosynthetic. Grows on damp soil, stream banks, and rotting logs. Requires consistent moisture and high humidity.
Habitat
Damp soil, stream banks, and disturbed ground in open, sunny locations where the ground stays moist.
Range
Found throughout the North and South Islands on damp soil, stream banks, and rotting logs. Common in shaded forests with high rainfall.
Endemism
Native
Main Threats
None significant. Localised threats include forest clearance, wetland drainage, and climate change reducing moisture.
Population
Not Threatened. Common and widespread in damp, disturbed habitats throughout New Zealand, particularly in lowland forests.
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 the umbrella liverwort from other liverworts. Liverworts were generally called "pūkohu" (mosses and lichens) or grouped with other small, damp-loving plants. The flat, scaly mats with their strange umbrellas would have been noticed – they looked like the skin of a creature, like the mushrooms of the underworld – but no distinct name survives. The fleshy thalli were sometimes applied to wounds to stop bleeding and promote healing. Today it still grows on damp soil in stream banks and gardens, and in spring the umbrellas appear – tiny green parasols that look like a bad idea in bloom.
Rain falls on it constantly. Marchantia polymorpha looks like it belongs on another planet. Its body is a flat, fleshy, lobed thallus. It sprawls in mats across damp soil. The surface is marked with diamond-shaped patterns. Like reptilian scales. Bright green to yellowish-green. It catches the eye not for size but for sheer strangeness. But the real theatre happens in breeding season. Male structures rise as flat-topped discs on stalks. The female ones – archegoniophores – unfurl like tiny green parasols. With finger-like lobes dangling beneath. They resemble something from a low-budget science fiction film. Or a bad idea blooming in slow motion. What makes this species special is precisely those umbrellas. No other liverwort in New Zealand puts on quite this show. The male saucers and the fringed female parasols appear most visibly in spring and early summer. When reproduction is in full swing. Designed by a committee of aliens, you might say. Look closer at the thallus. The diamond-shaped air chambers form a distinctive pattern across the surface. Underneath, purple scales and rhizoids anchor the plant to the soil. Reproduction happens two ways. Sexually via those umbrella structures. Or asexually through gemmae. Tiny disc-like propagules that form in cup-shaped depressions. To find umbrella liverwort is to spot flat, reptilian mats on damp ground. Green and scaly and utterly alien. And when they are breeding, the umbrellas appear. Tiny green parasols that seem like a warning or a joke. It remains the liverwort of strange shapes. The one that belongs on another planet. No recorded Māori name distinguishes the umbrella liverwort from other liverworts. Liverworts were generally called pūkohu or grouped with other small, damp-loving plants. The flat, scaly mats with their strange umbrellas would have been noticed. They looked like the skin of a creature. Like the mushrooms of the underworld. No distinct name survives. The fleshy thalli were sometimes applied to wounds. To stop bleeding and promote healing. Today it still grows on damp soil in stream banks and gardens. And in spring the umbrellas appear. Tiny green parasols that look like a bad idea in bloom.