During the past 5 years intensive bryological explorations were carried out in Tanzania with special emphasize on hitherto undercollected areas (e.g. Nguru mountains, Mafia Island, unknown accesses of Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru) and on special habitats (e.g. rocky semi-desert or heath vegetation and alkaline tolerant epiphytic vegetation along the Rift Valley). These collections (above 8000 numbers) resulted in numerous records, some of them new to the African continent and at least 8 species new to science. The data point to interesting phytogeographical links and help to explain the evolution of the flora of East African volcanoes and crystalline mountains. Hitherto unknown oil bodies of more than 50 liverwort species were investigated. This paper does not give a full account of these studies but only provides examples to illustrate the above points.
Central Africa was one of the first regions in the tropics, if not the first, for which a checklist of mosses was compiled. In 1940, Demaret published the "Prodrome des Bryophytes du Congo Belge et du Ruanda-Urundi", followed by a supplement in 1946. In the 50 years since that time, numerous new contributions to the bryophyte flora of Central Africa have been made. Demaret added seven more publications on Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo). Potier de la Varde studied the bryophyte collections made during the surveys of the flora of the Central African volcanoes by Hedberg.
New or little known epiphyllous liverworts : 6., Papillolejeunea gen. nov. from Papua New Guinea
(1997)
A new epiphyllous Lejeuneaceae genus, Papillolejeunea is described. It is a segregate of Lejeunea, characterized by a large, 2-4 celled, stout, papilla like first (distal) tooth on a well developed, inflated lobule, while the second (proximal) tooth is reduced, blunt, hidden with the usually involuted free lobule margin. Four new species are described within the genus. One, Papillolejeunea balazsii, forms the Section nov. Papillolejeunea and the type of the genus, characterized by large number of serially arranged mucilage cells on the dorsal surface and margin of the lobe, at the margin of amphigastria and on the perianth keels. Three further species, Papillolejeunea candida, Papillolejeunea papuana and Papillolejeunea touwii constitute the Section nov. Candidae, where no such dorsal and marginal glands occur. The distribution of the genus seems to be restricted to the mountainous area of New Guinea.
The aim of this short and selected reference list is to guide bryologists in the very scattered African literature when they try to identify specimens, as no standard bryofloras are available for the whole of Tropical Africa. The idea to compile such a reference list was raised during the Tropical Bryology Workshop held by the British Bryological Society, in the Botany School of Cambridge University, on the 21st of September 1990. The list is based on the senior author’s private library and files. We hope that the publication and distribution of such a list, even if incomplete, will prove to be useful for the future taxonomic and floristic works in Tropical Africa with special reference to the Bryologia Africana Project. We also hope that it will encour- age further collecting and identification by those who are not well versed in or do not possess the very diversified taxonomic literature on African bryo- phytes.
Manual of tropical bryology
(2003)
Bryophytes belong to the oldest land plants. They existed already in the Palaeozoic 300 mio years ago in forms which were hardly different from the extant species. They remained relatively unchanged with relatively low evolution rates (and are thus often called a „conservative“ plant group), but could successfully establish themselves in an always varying environment from Devonian swamps to Permian forests, Mesozoic deserts and as epiphytes in Tertiary rainforests. They are not eaten by snails or insects, and are resistant against fungi and bacteria.
The treatment of non epiphyllous Lejeuneaceae taxa was published in the first part of the Central African BRYOTROP results (Pócs 1993b). Anyhow, a nice material collected on tiny twigs (partly from fallen canopy branches) from the W edge of Nyungwe Forest Reserve, in a wet type of montane rainforest at 2000 m altitude, remained unidentified.
82 liverwort taxa are recorded from Uganda, of which 24 are new to the flora of the country. Colura hedbergiana, Colura kilimanjarica and Harpalejeunea fischeri found on Mt. Elgon, were previously known only from their type locality on Mt. Kilimanjaro or on Mt. Karisimbi. A Madagascan-Mascarene species, Plagiochila boryana was also found on Mt. Elgon. Its only known previous locality in continental Africa was Mt. Kilimanjaro.
During a joint field trip organised by H. Streimann in 1999, the authors collected large amount of bryophytes in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria states and in the Austral Capital Territory (A.C.T.). Some of them proved to be new state records, or new records for Australia. The list below is the first selection of these records in Hepaticae, with 16 species newly reported from the whole continent.