Marchantiales is an order of thallose liverworts that includes species like Marchantia polymorpha, a widespread plant often found beside rivers, and Lunularia cruciata, a common and often troublesome weed in moist, temperate gardens and greenhouses.
Marchantiales
Image: Liverwort cross section
Image: Liverwort cross section
The Marchantiophyta are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information.
Marchantiophyta
A thallose liverwort, Lunularia cruciata
Sexual life cycle of a Marchantia-like liverwort
Marchantia polymorpha, with antheridial and archegonial stalks.