Moss Flora Milestone Reached
Encalypta rhaptocarpa (Sparse): Drawing by Rebecca Wagstaff
A milestone has been achieved in New Zealand botany with the publication of six family treatments for the Flora of New Zealand, Mosses. The newly published family treatments are for the Amblystegiaceae, Buxbaumiaceae, Encalyptaceae, Entodontaceae, Ephemeraceae, and Erpodiaceae. Dr Allan Fife, the author of these treatments, commented: “Some 18 months ago, Peter Heenan, Ilse Breitwieser, Aaron Wilton, Jessica Beever, and I concluded that progressive publication of individual family treatments, as part of the eFlora, would be an effective way to move the Moss Flora project to completion. The six ‘fascicles’ recently published are the initial outcome of that decision.
The eFlora makes available these new moss family treatments initially in two ways. Firstly, they have been produced as a downloadable pdf (http://www.nzflora.info/publications.html). Secondly, they are available electronically online within the eFlora (http://www.nzflora.info/index.html) by searching for a taxonomic name. The eFlora moss treatments include keys, accepted names and synonyms, descriptions, etymological, distributional, habitat, and other notes. Each species is illustrated by line drawings prepared by Rebecca Wagstaff. In the future we hope to produce other profiles that will be tailored to various user requirements.
For further information on the eFlora please contact the project Editor-in-Chief Dr Ilse Breitwieser ([email protected]) or Allan Herbarium research leader Dr Peter Heenan ([email protected]), and for information on the moss treatments contact Dr Allan Fife ([email protected]).