Balantiopsis
Usually terrestrial, rarely lithophytic or submerged, dioicous. Stems creeping unless submerged, irregularly and sparingly branched; branches emerging from main stem abaxial to lateral leaf with reduced number of lobes and without a collar of tissue at base, or rarely emerging from near an unmodified underleaf and with a collar of tissue at base. Lateral leaves succubous, imbricate, dentate or ciliate, rarely concave, with two bifid lobes and obtrapezoidal in outline (not in Victoria), or with two main lobes, folding at division forming an abaxial lobe and adaxial lobule; abaxial lobe when present larger than adaxial lobule, unlobed or bifid, ovate, elliptic, ligulate or oblong in outline; adaxial lobule erect (not in Victoria) to lying over abaxial lobe, unlobed or bifid, orbicular, ovate or ligulate in outline. Underleaves differing in shape and size from lateral leaves, much smaller than lateral leaves, distant to imbricate, bilobed, ovate to orbicular in outline, dentate to ciliate. Leaf cells oblong or rectangular to elongate-pentagonal or elongate hexagonal, becoming isodiametric toward apex, but elongate in cilia, smooth to verrucose or striolate, thin-walled, without trigones, with 2–20 granular-botryoidal globular, ovoid, ellipsoid or fusiform oil bodies. Rhizoids in fascicles at underleaf bases. Androecia rarely with bracteolar antheridia (not in Victoria). Sporophyte concealed within a pendent marsupium covered in rhizoids with a perianth at apex; perianth a vestigial tube of cilia or rarely (not in Victoria) distinct, inflated, ovoid to globose, with plicate and ciliate apex. Capsule ellipsoid. Spores faintly papillose or reticulate.
Eighteen species shared between southern South America, Juan Fernandez, the Falkland Islands, Malesia to New Caledonia, New Zealand and eastern Australia (Schuster 2000; Söderström et al. 2016); four species in Victoria.
Schuster, R.M. (2000). Austral Hepaticae Part I. Nova Hedwigia Beiheft 118. Cramer in der Gebrüder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchbehandlung: Berling & Stuttgart.
Söderström, L., Hagborg, A., von Konrat, M., Bartholomew-Began, S., Bell, D., Briscoe, L., Brown, E., Cargill, D.C., Costa, D.P., Crandall-Stotler, B.J., Cooper, E.D., Dauphin, G., Engel, J.J., Feldberg, K., Glenny, D., Gradstein, S.R., He, X., Heinrichs, J., Hentschel, J., Ilkiu-Borges, A.L., Katagiri, T., Konstantinova, N.A., Larraín, J., Long, D.G., Nebel, M., Pócs, T., Puche, F., Reiner-Drehwald, E., Renner, M.A.M., Sass-Gyarmati, A., Schäfer-Verwimp, A., Moragues, J.S., Stotler, R.E., Sukkharak, P., Thiers, B.M., Uribe, J., Váňa, J., Villarreal, J.C., Wigginton, M., Zhang, L. & Zhu, R. (2016). World checklist of hornworts and liverworts. Phytokeys 59: 1–828.
Spinning