272 ^ CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



works concerned with the more tropical areas of Africa have appeared, examples 

 of which are those of Potier de la Varde (1928, 1936) on Oubangui and Gabon; 

 of Demaret (1940) for the Belgian Congo; of Cufodontis (1951) for Ethiopia; 

 of Paris (1908) on French Guinea; and of Dixon (1938) on tropical East Africa. 



The bryophytes of tropical North America have been the subject of numer- 

 ous investigations. Mexico, especially, has received much attention from bryolo- 

 gists, as indicated by the excellent publications of Bescherelle (1872), Gottsche 

 (1867), Theriot (1933), and Crum (1951a, 1951b). 



The Central American republics range from well known to almost unknown, 

 bryologically speaking, as shown by examples of relatively recent publications 

 on Guatemala (Bartram, 1949); British Honduras (Steere, 1946a); El Salva- 

 dor (Steere and Chapman, 1946); Honduras (Crum, 1952b); Costa Pica (Bar- 

 tram, 1951; Herzog, 1951); Nicaragua (Crum, 1952a), and Panama (Crum and 

 Steere, 1950). 



Bryological studies of the West Indies have resulted in many significant 

 works, of which examples are those of Theriot (1939-1941) on Cuba and (1944) 

 on Hispaniola; of Pagan (1939) on Puerto Rico and (1942) on Guadeloupe; of 

 Bescherelle (1876) and Brotherus (1903) on the French Antilles; of Britton 

 (1921) and Evans (1911) on the Bahamas; and of Bartram (1936a) on Jamaica. 



The enormous collections made by the hepaticologist Richard Spruce (cf. 

 "Wallace, 1908) between 1849 and 1864, during his explorations of the Ama- 

 zonian basin of the Andes of Ecuador and Peru and of the headwaters of the 

 Orinoco River in the hinterland of Colombia and Venezuela, immeasurably fur- 

 thered the progress of our knowledge of the bryology of South America. 

 Spruce's great collections formed the basis for two important works, the very 

 useful treatment of all tropical American mosses by Mitten (1869), and the 

 magnificently original report on his hepatics by Spruce himself (1885). In spite 

 of the voluminous literature on the bryophytes of South America, very few gen- 

 eral works have been published since those of Spruce and Mitten. Besides the 

 exceptionally fine publications of Herzog (1916, 1920), based on his own col- 

 lections in Bolivia, useful reviews of the bryophytes of different South Ameri- 

 can republics have been produced by Pittier (1936) for Venezuela, by Kiihne- 

 mann (1938) for Argentina, by Brotherus (1920) for Peru and (1924b) for 

 Brazil, by Theriot (cf. Potier de la Varde, 1948) for Chile, by Herter (1933) 

 for Uruguay, by Richards (1934) for British Guiana, and by Steere (1948c) 

 for Ecuador. 



In spite of its remoteness the southernmost region of South America has 

 received a surprisingly large amount of attention from collectors of bryophytes 

 because of the numerous visits there of expeditions studying the south polar 

 regions. The important general report by Cardot (1908) should be cited here, 

 as well as more recent works by Stephani (1911), Cardot and Brotherus (1923), 

 and Roivainen and Bartram (1937). Several bryophytes have been reported 

 from the Antarctic Continent itself, in spite of its extraordinarily inhospitable 

 climate (Cardot, 1913; Bartram, 1938b). 



The bryophytes of New Zealand are now reasonably well known through 

 the synoptical work of Dixon (1913-1929) and the contributions of Hodgson 

 (1950). Australia, on the other hand, in spite of its much greater area, has re- 

 ceived less study. Since the census of mosses published by Watts and White- 



