Our research focused on liverworts (Marchantiophyta) from genus Conocephalum in Slovenia. In Europe, there are two species of liverworts belonging to genus Conocephalum: C. conicum (L.) Dumort and C. salebrosum Szweykowski, Buczkowska & Odrzykoski. The latter was described in 2005 by Szweykowski et al. as a separate species from C. conicum. The later floristic researches revealed that the new species is present in almost all European countries (Hodgetts, 2015). Martinčič (2017) predicted that C. salebrosum is distributed in a larger area in Slovenia as known. Until our research in 2018, there were only two localities of C. salebrosum known in Slovenia, in Kozjak (Martinčič, 2012) and Sodražica in direction of Bloke (Martinčič, 2017).
Liverworts were sampled in 38 locations mostly in western and central Slovenia. We prepared specimens to be examined under light microscope, measured some characters relevant for the determination of samples. Samples were also herbarized and included in Herbarium LJU.
The results revealed that C. salebrosum is widespread in western and central Slovenia. C. Conicum was generally widespread in Slovenia (Martinčič, 2011), according to our results on the frequency of C. salebrosum, we expect that many data recorded in the past as C. conicum, is actual data for the C. salebrosum. Despite sampling we were not able to find C. conicum in Alpine region of Slovenia.
We made the identification key to determine those two species. As genus and both species haven't had Slovene names, we suggest names »veliki jetrenjak« for genus Conocephalum, »navadni veliki jetrenjak« for C. conicum and »kačjekoži veliki jetrenjak« for C. salebrosum.
The revision of herbarium material from Herbarium LJU is planned. The collection contains about 100 herbarium sheets, all identified as C. conicum. Because most of the samples for this research were collected in western and central part of Slovenia we suggest further sampling in southern and eastern parts of Slovenia This data will supplement the knowledge about the distribution of both species in Slovenia.
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