Discovery of British and Irish bryophytes 1. Trends in the detection and reporting of new species, 1538–2021

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ABSTRACT Introduction We examine the discovery of British and Irish bryophytes, based on a database of their first records. For 1140 taxa in the current (2021) checklist we have compiled information on the place and date of the first record, the finder and the author and place of its publication. The full database is posted on the Zenodo repository. Here we analyse changes over time in the attributes (e.g. size) of newly discovered species, their location and the main finders. Methods We checked first records reported in bryological publications, extracting the relevant details for our database. Most are supported by herbarium specimens. To check on these we have relied mainly on the expertise of others, examining only a few specimens ourselves. Key results Unlike flowering plants, very few bryophytes were known until ca. 1690 and the first to be discovered tended to be widespread, large species with frequent sporophytes, growing in lowland England. After Dillenius’s Historia muscorum (1741) there was a major trough in activity, extending to the 1780s. Thereafter there was a surge in records from the Highlands of Scotland (from 1790) and western Ireland (from 1809). The flood of new moss records in the early nineteenth century culminated in the 1850s, with William Wilson making an outstanding contribution. New liverwort records increased later in the century and peaked between 1900 and 1909. There followed a further trough for both groups from 1920 to 1949. Since then the rate of discovery has remained steady at about 2.8 species per year.