page_title: Metzgeriales
section_title: Families
hierarchical_section_title: Metzgeriales / Classification / Families
caption_attribution_description: Pellia epiphylla
context_page_description: Metzgeriales is an order of liverworts. The group is sometimes called the simple thalloid liverworts: "thalloid" because the members lack structures resembling stems or leaves, and "simple" because their tissues are thin and relatively undifferentiated. All species in the order have a small gametophyte stage and a smaller, relatively short-lived, spore-bearing stage. Although these plants are almost entirely restricted to regions with high humidity or readily available moisture, the group as a whole is widely distributed, and occurs on every continent except Antarctica.
context_section_description: The Metzgeriales traditionally included fourteen families, as follows:
  Allisoniaceae *
  Aneuraceae
  Calyculariaceae *
  Fossombroniaceae *
  Hymenophytaceae
  Makinoaceae
  Metzgeriaceae
  Mizutaniaceae
  Moerckiaceae
  Pallaviciniaceae
  Pelliaceae *
  Petalophyllaceae *
  Phyllothalliaceae
  Sandeothallaceae *
  Families marked with an asterisk * were classified in the separate order Fossombroniales by Crandall-Stotler and Stotler, but this grouping is not supported by subsequent analysis using DNA sequences.
  Two additional families were formerly included within the Metzgeriales, but since have been transferred to other classes of liverwort.  The Blasiaceae has been assigned its own order Blasiales, and phylogenetic studies show that it is more closely related to the Marchantiales than to members of the Metzgeriales.  Likewise, the Treubiaceae is now in its own order Treubiales, within the recently recognized class Haplomitriopsida.
  A 2016 analysis of liverwort classification has further reduced the Metzgeriales to include only two families, Metzgeriaceae and Aneuraceae, with all other previously included families dispersed into three additional orders: Fossombroniales, Pallaviciniales, and Pelliales.
caption: Pellia epiphylla
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