Taxonomy of Australian Pottiaceae

Project summary

The aim of this project is to complete a taxonomic treatment of Australian genera in the family Pottiaceae, subfamilies Chionolomoideae, Trichostomoideae and Merceyoideae. This project will expand on past work, building especially on the results from a previous ABRS funded project, A taxonomic treatment of Australian genera in the family Pottiaceae, subfamily Pottioideae, and resolve the status of certain genera (e.g. Pseudocrossidium, Didymodon and Barbula) in Australia.

The family Pottiaceae is the largest and one of the most challenging of the families to be completed for the Flora of Australia moss volumes. The ephemeral nature of a number of the genera, the difficulty in recognising them in the field, the small size of the plants and their lack of sporophytes make this a difficult group of mosses to study. The Pottiaceae contains around 10 per cent of the world's moss species. There are about 40 genera and 100 species in Australia.

The family Pottiaceae includes species that are characteristic of harsh environments and many of the species are a dominant component of soil crusts, which have very important ecological roles in arid and semi-arid zones of Australia.

The project will generate standardised descriptions of all species in the family Pottiaceae in Australia, as well as illustrations of selected taxa, for publication in the Flora of Australia series.

Project team

• Pina Milne (Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne)
• Helen Jolley (The University of Melbourne)
• Graham Bell (State Herbarium of South Australia, Adelaide)
• Rod Seppelt (Australian Antarctic Division)

Support

• Australian Biological Resources Study