GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRlKf TK )N OF THE SOUTH 

 AFRICAN BRYOPHYTA. 



Bv Thomas Robkktson Si.m. 



Introduction. 



Till lately all that was known concerning- the South African 

 Bryophyta had heen learned from the specimens sent to Ein'ope 

 by a few collectors, each interested in his own localitx'. excei)i 

 Ecklon. Drege, and Rehmann, who travelled more wideK. 

 Ecklon's and Drege's plants were comi)arativel\ few in num])er. 

 and were dealt with long ago, before l)ryology l>ecame an exact 

 <cience ; Rehmann's collections, on the othei' hand, suffered from 

 "he hair-splitting, over-exactitude of Muller during his later 

 /ears, and also (from Rehmann's own inexactitude, the conse- 

 quence being that we have inherited an enc^rmous number of 

 species founded on single scraps hid away in European herbaria, 

 nearly half of which have been named in these herbaria or in 

 e.vsi-ccatw, but have never been published, while of those pub- 

 lished the earlier are not easily either confirmed in or excluded 

 from nioderii classification, while the more recent were described 

 from herbarium specimens or scraps instead of from field ex- 

 perience, and are in far too many cases synonymous, but stil! 

 remain imadjiisted, or they were placed generically when generic 

 characters had not been seen, and re(|uired rearrangement latei'. 

 the final result being an unduly long list of specific name- 

 credited to South Africa which has to be worked down bv 

 gradual elimination of such as cannot stand as good di'-tinc; 

 species. 



This has rendered any general review of the South African 

 Bryophyta exceedingly difficult, since in the majority of instance'- 

 only one en- a few localities are recorded for any species, how- 

 ever common, wdiile a rare species, if recognized as such by the 

 collect<jrs. was usually represented from each locality in which 

 it was found. This ])articularly affects our knowledge < 'f tlu- 

 Transvaal species, since Rehmann, collecting for sale distribu- 

 tion, collected for two years in the Cape Peninsula, Knysna and 

 Natal, before proceeding to the Transvaal, and then collected 

 mostly such species as he had not previously distributed, the 

 result being that his exsiccafcc tell us much concerning the rare 

 species of the Transvaal, and almost nothing concerning the com- 

 mon ones. 



It has fallen to my lot, after .^o years" residence in ami 

 travel through many parts of South Africa, during the whole 

 of wdiich ])eriod the Bryojjhyta have been of constant interest 

 to me, to ibe now in a jxisition to make certain general observa- 

 tions which may be useful to others. 



In doing so. T wish to deal more with locality associations 

 than with individual si)ecies, and to leave out of account the 

 en<>rmous number of names having single recoi'd>. which may {tv 



