Southwest Asia is defined in the present work as all the land east of
the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas to Afghanistan in the east,
including the Sinai and Arabian Peninsulas and Socotra Island. This
region is also known as the Near East, ‘Vorderer Orient’, Levant or
Asia Minor and it essentially covers Asia 5 of Index
Muscorum. Bryologically, southwest Asia is still poorly and unevenly
studied, although its exploration began relatively early. The first
note on mosses from the Arabian Peninsula appeared in 1775, in the
report from the Danish expedition of Per Forska° l to ‘Arabia
Felix’. Information on the bryoflora of southwest Asia has increased
markedly since the middle of the nineteenth century thanks to the
contributions of P. G. Lorentz, J. Juratzka, J. Milde, A. Geheeb,
V. Schiffner, J. Baumgartner and others who studied bryophytes
collected by the various travelers and explorers of this region.
Nonetheless, so far the only more or less complete regional bryophyte
floras in the Near East are those from Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula,
Israel and Socotra. All the historical bryofloristic data for each
country of southwest Asia, up to 1990, were summarized by the authors
of the present work (Frey & Ku¨rschner, 1991). In 1977, they
published the first bryological account addressing the bryophyte flora
and vegetation of northern Iran, and during the subsequent 34 years
they have continued regular studies of the bryoflora in various
countries of the Near East. The results were presented in numerous
publications, including a long and well known series ‘Studies on
Arabian bryophytes’ which consisted of no fewer than 26 accounts
published between 1982 and 2000. They yielded a wealth of taxonomic
and phytogeographical information on hornworts, liverworts and mosses,
including numerous new country records and discoveries of a number of
species new to science.
The present publication is a synthesis of all the knowledge on the
bryophytes of southwest Asia which was accumulated by the authors and
other researchers in herbaria and published accounts. Alas, this is
not a classical descriptive flora but only a detailed key for the
determination of all the taxa of hepatics, mosses and hornworts
recorded in this region.
The treatment starts with a key to phyla, classes and subclasses
whilst the body of the book consists of keys to taxa below the rank of
subclass. The descriptions of families, genera, species and
infraspecific taxa are included in the extended couplets of the keys
which are organized at several levels of the taxonomic hierarchy.
In the case of liverworts 2 which are greatly diversified
morphologically, separate keys to genera, species, subspecies and
varieties are organized within families, except for the Marchantiidae
in which families and lower taxa are keyed out within two orders,
Marchantiales and Ricciales. The keys to genera and species of mosses
are preceded by a general key to acro- and cladocarpous mosses which
are contrasted to pleurocarps. This is followed by the keys to
families within these groups. Each division of bryophytes is preceded
by a conspectus of classifications which is adopted from the 13th
edition of Engler’s Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien (Frey, 2009). In
many cases, couplets dealing with taxa are accompanied by taxonomic
and phytogeographical notes.
The illustrative material is scanty and intended to depict variation
of morphological and anatomical structures, rather than to present
portraits of some exemplary species. Hence, only various details of
some 45 species of moss and about 60 taxa of liverworts are
illustrated with line drawings taken from various sources and
assembled in eight plates which should help users, especially those
having less advanced knowledge of bryophytes, in the use of the keys.
The area covered by the treatment is exceedingly diverse geologically,
climatically and geographically. Generally, it is very difficult for
both bryologists and bryophytes. Southwest Asia has a very complex
political, social, religious and economic history and some of its
regions are politically unstable and overwhelmed with wars and various
conflicts, making bryologizing dangerous. Moreover, huge expanses of
this territory are occupied by deserts and dry steppes and this is
reflected in the composition of the bryoflora.
In general terms the bryophyte flora of southwest Asia is rich because
it totals 1193 species including 959 species of moss, 229 liverworts
and five hornworts. (There are some inconsistencies in the total
number of moss species because, in the table on p. 9 some 948 species
are given, whereas on the back cover a total of 959 species is
mentioned. This discrepancy is apparently the result of the inclusion
of 10 species of orthotrichalean mosses which are listed in ‘Addenda’
on p. 218. They were reported from Turkey (Lara et al., 2010) when the
present work was in press. However, this still leaves one taxon
unaccounted for.)
In practice the total number of species is of minor importance because
a good number of varieties and some species accepted by the authors
still need careful taxonomic assessment. The same also applies to a
number of records of otherwise distinct species which were recorded
from the study area but for which the voucher specimens have not been
located and reexamined by the authors. A good number of them are
listed at the end of treatments of particular families as doubtful
and/or excluded species but these enumerations do not seem to be
exhaustive. For example, the occurrence of Seligeria tristichoides,
Bucklandiella elliptica, Timmia megapolitana, Encalypta microstoma,
Drepanocladus capillifolius, Platyhypnidium lusitanicum, Sciuro-hypnum
latifolium, Pogonatum neesii and P. inflexum in Turkey is very
dubious, as are the cases of Physcomitrium immersum and Entosthodon
planoconvexus in the Sinai Peninsula, Bryhnia novae-angliae,
Stereophyllum wightii and Ectropothecium cyperoides in Iran, Conardia
compacta in Israel, and Hygroamblystegium fluviatile
subsp. noterophilum in Afganistan.
Particular countries of the Near and Middle East differ markedly in
their bryodiversities. It is not only an effect of the local
environmental conditions and availability of suitable habitats for
bryophytes, but primarily a result of the fact that very few of these
countries have active resident bryologists. Turkey clearly has the
richest bryoflora, which consists of 944 taxa, but it has a quite
large group of bryologists at several universities who actively study
the local bryoflora and closely cooperate with various bryological
centres in Europe. At the other extreme are Qatar and Bahrain from
which no taxa of moss and liverwort have as yet been recorded 2 even
of the family Pottiaceae whose members are usually considered as
mosses of harsh environments. Areas with arid climates predominate in
southwest Asia and this family is represented regionally by 198 taxa
and, together with the Grimmiaceae, which consist of 69 taxa,
constitute well over one quarter of the total bryoflora.
The present treatment is an excellent starting point for further
bryological exploration of southwest Asia. It should serve as a basic
source for determination of bryophytes and it is an excellent tool of
education for resident bryologists. Without training local students of
bryophytes, and encouraging their exploratory activity, it will be
difficult to achieve a satisfactory level of knowledge of the
bryoflora in this region.
Ryszard Ochyra, Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences,
Kraków, Poland
Journal of Bryology vol. 34 no. 2, 2012
