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History of Bryological Research in the National Park.
The first collection of mosses known to have been made in the Arthur Pass National Park was made by J. B. Armstrong in March, 1867. A more comprehensive examination was, however, carried out by the Swedish botanist S. Berggren in the early months of 1874. His mosses, together with other rich collections both of phanerogams and of cryptogams made in both islands of New Zealand, were taken to Lund, where, unfortunately, most of them lay unidentified till in 1937 they were reviewed by Dixon and Bartram in a joint paper (1937, pp. 36–84) which made it clear that of some fifty mosses listed from the Park, fully twenty were species new to science at the time of their collection. The following four have eluded all subsequent investigators, viz., Ditrichum capillifolium, Dicranella perfalcata, Conostomum giganteum, and Brachythecium subplicatum. A number of other interesting mosses collected and named by subsequent investigators or from their material, had previously been gathered in this area by Berggren. Of these, the two endemic species of Pseudodistichium, Campylopodium lineare, Anoectangium bellii, Pleuridium arnoldii, Braunfelsia obesifolia, Bryum huttonii, and Mittenia plumula may be mentioned as examples. In the “List of Species” at the end of this paper will be found a list of mosses known to have been collected in the Arthur Pass Park by Berggren. Besides the recorded species, a number of unrecorded species collected by Berggren occur in a suite of specimens presented to the Auckland Memorial Museum herbarium.
Following Berggren, the next investigators of the mosses of the Park were Robert Brown and T. W. Naylor-Beckett, both of Christ-church, and Donald Petrie, of Auckland. Brown first visited the Park in June, 1884, when he examined the moss flora of the Bealey and Arthur's Pass. He revisited the area at intervals until 1889, when he climbed Kelly's Hill and was rewarded by the discovery of the following recognised species then new to science, viz., Andreaea aquatica, Andreaea aquatilis, and Pseudodistichium brotherusii. Tortula bealeyensis and Dicranoloma integrifolium were also first detected in the Park by Brown, the first certainly, the latter presumably.
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From about 1880 till the end of the century, Beckett, who was interested in mountaineering, gave considerable attention to the mosses. He discovered on the Pass itself both Orthotrichum graphiomitrium and Funaria subattenuata, previously unknown, and on Kelly's Hill he detected in New Zealand the South American moss Cheilothela chilensis and the Australian moss Papillaria amblyacis.
In 1895, Dr. D. Petrie made the ascent of Kelly's Hill in the company of Dr. L. Cockayne and collected numerous mosses, several of which proved new to the New Zealand flora. As Petrie has at no time published anything concerning the mosses of New Zealand, his activities in this field and the value of his contribution have never received the recognition they merited; for not only did he collect copiously in the Otago and Auckland provinces, but he brought to light a very considerable number of mosses new to the flora or to science at the time of their discovery, or new to the districts where the discoveries were made. Most of his collection is now housed in the Dominion Museum, though the writer had received from Petrie a not inconsiderable collection of mosses accompanied by the hope that some attention should be paid to these plants.
On Kelly's Hill, Petrie first obtained Tortula petriei, then new to science, and Calliergon sarmentosum, a moss not previously detected in the Southern Hemisphere. From Petrie's specimens collected in the Taramakau Valley, Brotherus described his Eucamptodon petriei sp. nov. subsequently found to be Braunfelsia obesifolia. Miss L. B. Moore alone has located this fine endemic moss in areas other than Arthur Pass National Park, viz., at Mount Arthur in the North-Western Botanical District.
During the past fifty years, no further systematic study of the mosses of this region seems to have been undertaken, though Miss L. B. Moore has brought to light the European moss Polytrichum formosum, and Mr. G. O. K. Sainsbury the Grimmiaceous moss Coscinodon australis.
Apart from a small collection of mosses gathered in 1916, and added to in 1920, on the road from Arthur's Pass to Otira, the writer began his study of the bryophytic flora of the Park in 1942, and continued it in each of the following years. Besides noting and collecting most of the mosses previously reported, the writer has succeeded in discovering what may be a new Blindia or Blindiopsis, the epiphytic moss Dicranoweisia spenceri, and a moss identified by Mr. Sainsbury as Rhacomitrium striatipilum, an Andean species with which this appears to be identical. Dicranoloma integrifolium and Campylopodium lineare have again come to light. Homalia auriculata, noted on Kelly's Hill, has not before been observed in the South Island, and Homalia pulchella, found at Otira, has eluded previous workers. Braunfelsia has for the first time been found fruiting copiously. Indeed, some fifty mosses are recorded from the area for the first time, though it seems scarcely possible that such plentiful mosses as Leptotheca gaudichaudii, Lepyrodon australis, Neckera hymenodonta, or Ceratodon purpureus could have escaped the notice of previous students.