Some Studies in the Bryophyte Ecology of a Lowland Beech Forest Area at Eastbourne near Wellington

Abstract

Until recent years the bryophytes of New Zealand had received attention only from the taxonomists. Hooker (1867) in his "Handbook of New Zealand Flora" produced the only manual of New Zealand bryophytes. Since the time of Hooker many new species have been added to our Flora and, as a result of many poorly described species and the building up of an ever increasing synonymy, the taxonomy of this group of plants became very confused. Dixon (1913-1929) brought together all the known valid species of mosses found in New Zealand. In this series of papers he listed the synonyms for each species, incorporated keys to the species, and gave brief descriptions of many of these species. Since this publication by Dixon there have been revisions by Dixon & Sainsbury (1933) and Sainsbury (1945). The Hepaticae had not received critical attention until Hodgson (1941-1949) published a series of papers reviewing the species of certain genera. This series up-to-date has included seven papers with descriptions and illustrations of 15 genera of the Jungermanniales acrogyneae.