Summary

This paper contains locality records of various species of New Zealand mosses under the headings: species added to the flora, taxonomic changes, recent discoveries greatly extending the known distribution, and first records from the Botanical Districts of New Zealand.

Since the publication of my initial paper (1947) and of Supplement No. 1 (1949) concerning the Geographical Distribution of the Mosses indigenous to New Zealand, extensive and intensive field work has revealed the presence in most of the Botanical Districts of many species not hitherto observed in these areas. This paper summarizes these results, draws attention to some noteworthy extensions in the known range of several species, and indicates recent nomenclature changes.

The writer has recently published (1949 and 1950) two papers on the Bryophytes of Stewart Island, while another (1952) deals with the Moss Flora of the Dunedin Sub-district. In these are recorded approximately 350 bryophytes not previously known from these areas, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate in the present paper.

Most of the records here indicated are the result of field studies in Otago by George Simpson and K. W. Allison, in the region of Waikare-moana by N. J. Butler, on the Ruahine Range by A. P. Druce, and in all the Botanical Districts of South Island by the writer. Material housed in the herbaria of the Dominion Museum and of the Plant Research Bureau has provided further evidence, as have the activities of several other botanists.

From the information now available, it would appear that many mosses reach their optimum development in New Zealand either in the Auckland Provincial District in the north or in the Otago District in the south; while not a few are practically confined to the wetter forests and mountains of the west, or to the drier grasslands east of the axial chain; but it can scarcely be said that the Botanical Districts of Cockayne apply to the mosses equally with the phanerogams.

In New Zealand ecological and cytological research in respect to the bryophytes is as yet in its infancy, notwithstanding the magnitude of this field. Intensive investigation of the many large areas yet scarcely examined, or not at all, will probably reveal furtehr species and varieties, as is shown by recent discoveries by Allison in Central Otago.

(Note. The Botanical Districts except No. 4, Volcanic Plateau, are listed under the heading, “First Records from the Botanical Districts.”)

Several other mosses await determination. A species of Polytrichadelphus quite unlike normal forms of P. magellanicus, but which may be only a form of that species, was recently gathered on the track to Doubtful Sound. One result of recent additions and deletions, coupled with the discovery of six supposed endemics in other lands, has been to reduce the estimate for the endemic element in New Zealand mosses from 40 per cent. to 33 per cent.