B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 35. 2004 (Budapest, 2004)

Papp, Beáta: Contributions to the bryoflora of the Pontic Mts, North Anatolia, Turkey

The first description about the bryophyte vegetation of the area was provided by HANDEL-MAZZETTI (1909). Besides of higher plants, fungi and lichens, numerous bryological records can be found in this paper in relation to the elevation zones of the mountains and their higher plant vegetation. 138 mosses are listed in the paper and the list of hepatics elaborated by V. Schiffner contains 50 taxa. Before Handel-Mazzetti's study only some sporadic bryological records were known from the region (e.g. Knapp in 1884 around Trabzon). Later, REIMERS (1927) added a few species to the bryophyte flora of the Pontic Mts with a record of 31 species published, among which 18 were new to the region. Later on in Henderson's papers (HENDERSON and MUIRHEAD 1955, HENDERSON 1964) further bryological records of the mountain range were compiled mainly from the surroundings of Giresun, Rize, Trabzon and Artvin. The paper of ROBINSON and GODFREY (1960) also contains about 40 species from the region collected mainly around Trabzon. A summarisation of the knowledge on the bryophytes of Turkey was published in 1961 by HENDERSON (1961), who established 15 distributional grid squares, which coincide roughly with the major floristical regions of the country. This grid system is highly accepted by Turkish bryologists and used in their recent publications as well. According to Henderson the eastern part of the Pontic Mts belongs to the A4 grid square (40^-2° N; 38-42° E). Thanks to the increasing interest in bryophyte research in the last 10 years in the country, several papers were published by Turkish bryologists dealing with the area (ÖZDEMIR 1994, 2001, ÖZDEMIR and BAYDAR 1997, BAYDAR and ÖZDEMIR 1996, GÖKLER 1998, ERDAG 2000), and giving new records to the bryophyte list of HENDERSON (1961) which contains 273 taxa from the A4 square. Covering the whole of the Turkish bryoflora, a comprehensive work about the bryophyte flora of southwestern Asia was published by FREY and KÜRSCHNER (1991). MATERIALS AND METHODS Collections were made in July of 2001 in the northeastern part of the Pontic Mts. Mainly the mixed evergreen-deciduous forest zone was visited between 600-1,200 m a.s.l. Several different habitats were thoroughly investigated for bryophytes (e.g. shaded and exposed volcanic rocks, rock walls, streamsides, tree barks and decaying logs). The collected material is deposited in the herbarium of the Hungarian Natural History Museum (BP). The nomenclature of the mosses follows CORLEY et al. (1981), CORLEY and CRUNDWELL (1991), and that of the liverworts follows SCHUMACKER and VÁNA (2000).