New Locality Records for Some Rare Mosses in Tasmania

There have been more than 640 species of bryophytes recorded for Tasmania, comprised of 282 hepatic species (Ratkowsky 1987) and 361 moss species (Dalton et al. 1991). This number of species is significant when compared to other groups ofland plants and, therefore, the bryophytes represent a major component of the flora (table 1). Since the publication of an annotated checklist of Tasmanian mosses (Dalton et al. 1991), further collecting, and taxonomic and ecological research on the flora have continued, resulting in some additions and further distributional records for many species. Moscal & Kirkpatrick (1997) presented distribution maps of mosses and liverworts in Tasmania with the intention of establishing their reservation and conservation status. However, for a number of the rarer species data were not included, or information was based on old collections andlor literature records. In this paper, new records for the distribution of four interesting and rare mosses in Tasmania are reported, and their importance to the diversity of the bryoflora is discussed.