198 



Plums — Oiii Liviiii^ Resounes 



For further information: 



Gary L. Smith Merrill 

 The Field Museum 



Department of Botany 



Roosevelt Rd. at Lakeshore Dr. 



Chicago. IL 60605 



Northwest. Some parts of the continent are less 

 well known, chiefly remote areas of the Rockies, 

 the arid Southwest, and the Great Plains. Much 

 information about the bryophytes of the interior 

 plains may be "in-etrievably lost since most of the 

 natural grassland, with whatever mosses it may 

 have sheltered, is under cultivation" (Schofield 

 1980, p. 131 ). but fieldwork can still yield impor- 

 tant discoveries (Merrill 1992) as well as basic 

 distributional information. 



A much-improved picture of bryophyte distri- 

 bution in North America will emerge as the result 

 of the preparation of treatments for Volume 1 3 of 

 Flora North America (scheduled for publication 

 in 1996), but much of the necessary distribution- 

 al information is simply not available now. 



Status 



Some bryophyte species appear to thrive in 

 disturbed habitats (both "naturally" disturbed and 

 those due to human activity). Many bryophytes, 

 however, are quite rare, have extremely local dis- 

 tributions, and are at risk. Changes in land use and 

 loss of habitat represent the greatest threat to 

 bryophyte diversity. Cutting forests, draining bogs 

 and wetlands, and destroying rock faces by quar- 

 rying and road building are especially destructive. 



Most bryophytes are unlikely to be picked for 

 their own sake, hut where mosses are particularly 

 abundant, as in the Pacific Northwest, commercial 

 harvesting for horticultural purposes can have a 

 significant effect. The loss of bryophyte habitat is 

 likely to have a ripple effect, since other organ- 

 isms closely associated with them are also likely 

 to be lost. Efforts at habitat restoration must take 

 into account the difficulty of re-creating the spe- 

 cialized conditions that many bryophytes require. 



Future Needs and Priorities 



Basic floristic inventories are an essential part 

 of any assessment of the role of bryophytes in nat- 

 ural ecosystems. While checklists are available 

 that cover the whole of North America (as well as 



many states), and floristic works are available that 

 make the task of identifying species easier, these 

 do not provide information on the status of indi- 

 vidual species. Inventories are needed to identify 

 areas where many rare bryophytes occur; these 

 areas should be given priority in establishing con- 

 servation reserves. In addition, trained specialists 

 are scarce, and their numbers are decreasing. The 

 advent of modem electronic data-base technology 

 makes it possible to capture important distribu- 

 tional infomiation contained in existing collec- 

 tions, but this also is time-intensive and expen- 

 sive. Priorities are to support basic floristic 

 research on bryophytes (and the training of new 

 bi'yologists and information specialists needed to 

 deal with the fomiidable task of documenting 

 bryophyte diversity) and to provide support to 

 institutions that maintain the major national 

 resource collections of bryophytes. 



References 



Anderson, L.E. 1980. Cytology and reproductive biology of 



mosses. Pages 37-76 m R.J. Taylor and \.E. Leviton. eds. 



The mosses of North America. Pacific Division of the 



American Association for the Advancement of Science. 



San Francisco. 

 Anderson. L.E.. H.A. Crum, and W.R. Buck. 1990. List of the 



mosses of North America north of Mexico. Bryologist 



93:448-499. 

 Gerson, U. 1982. Bryophytes and invertebrates. Pages 291- 



yyi in A.J.E. Smith, ed. Bryophyte ecology. Chapman and 



Hall, New York. 

 Longton. R.E. 1980. Physiological ecology of mosses. Pages 



77-1 1.1 in R.J. Taylor and A.E. Leviton, eds. The mosses of 



North America Symposium. Pacific Division. American 



Association for the Advancement of Science. San 



Francisco. 

 Merrill, G.L. Smith. 1991. Bryophytes of Konza Prairie 



Research Natural Area, Kansas. Bryologist 94:.183-39l. 

 Merrill. G.L. Smith. 1992. Ozobr,um ogahlense (Pottiaceae), 



a new moss genus and species from the American Great 



Plains. Novon 2:256-258. 

 Schofield. W.B. 1980. Phytogeography of the Mosses of 



North America (north of Me.\ico). Pages 131-170 in R.J. 



Taylor and A.E. Leviton, eds. The mosses of North 



America. Pacific Division of the American Association for 



the Advancement of Science. San Francisco. 

 Stoller, R.. and B. Crandall-Stotler. 1977. A checklist of the 



liverworts and homworts of North America. Bryologist 



80:405-428. 



Floristic 

 Inventories of 

 U.S. 

 Bryophytes 



by 



Alan Whittenwre 



Bruce Allen 



Missouri Botanical Garden, 



St. Louis 



Few floristic inventories of bryophytes have 

 been made in the United States, primarily 

 because of lack of trained personnel. The publi- 

 cation of modem manuals for the eastern United 

 States for mosses (Crum and Anderson 1 98 1) 

 and liverworts and horn worts (Schuster 

 1966-92) has improved the situation. The pauci- 

 ty of manuals in the western United States is 

 especially critical because of the uniqueness of 

 the western North American flora. Eighty per- 

 cent of the genera of bryophytes known to be 

 endemic to temperate North America are con- 

 fined to the area west of the 1 10th meridian 



(approximately the Rocky Mountains and 

 west), but very few bryologists work there 

 (Schofield 1980; Schuster 1984). 



Mosses 



Mosses are the best known of the three 

 bryophyte groups and have the most species: 

 1.320 species in 312 genera (Anderson et al. 

 1990). The only manual of mosses that treats all 

 of North America north of Mexico is by A.J. 

 Grout (1928-40), but is now outdated. Although 

 this flora is unreliable for the mosses in the 



