New and Rare Bryophytes in the Flora of Mongolia

Abstract

The known bryophyte flora of Mongolia consists of 269 moss species in 109 genera, and 40 liverworts in 25 genera. The present study is based on the examination of bryological collections of two Polish Scientific Expeditions and three botanists to Mongolia in 1977 and 1978. More than 25% of the species occur primarily in Central Asia and Southern Siberia, 47% in the Northern Hemisphere and 28% are widely distributed or cosmopolitan in the world. Only rare bryophytes and those new to Mongolia are included in the present paper. The investigated bryophytes were collected mainly during two Scientific Expeditions of the Polish Academy of Sciences to the Mongolian People's Republic. The first Expe- dition (I) was organized for the Selenga River basin and Asaraltu range (Central Aimak, northwestern Khentei Mountains), 1977. The second (II) was planned for the Kerulen River basin, Dumda Bajdalag-gol basin, southeastern Khentei Mountains, in the pro- gramme of Expedition Transmongolia 78, Khentei II, June-July, 1978. The above ex- peditions and their exploration programmes were organized and directed by Dr. K. Pqkala from the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin. In addition, this paper includes two collections of bryophytes made in the Gobi Altai Mountains by Prof. D. Fijalkowski and C. Sandagijn, student of biology, who collected mosses in their native region in the Ta- myrin-gol (River) valley, Khangai Mountains. The bryoflora of Mongolia has been very poorly investigated. The first papers on this poorly investigated territory of Central Asia, mainly concerning areas neighbouring Central Siberia and China were published by Dixon (1928), Kaalaas (1918), as well as by Brotherus and Savich (1931). The paper of the latter authors contains a list of the species collected as early as 1902 by A. A. Elenkin, a Russian botanist, during his journey in the Sayan Mountains and northern Mongolia. However, fundamental studies on the bryophyte flora began with the publishing of a paper by A. L. Abramova and I. I. Abramov (1956). Their later papers were published with C. Cegmed (1977a,b, 1979). Data from herbaria have made it possible to correct the distribution of the acrocarpous mosses given in the first volume of the Handbook of the Mosses of the U.S.S.R. (Savich-Ljubitzkaya & Smirnova 1970). Single articles on Mongolian bryophytes were published also by Duda (1968), Boros (1970), Stefureac (1974) and Schubert et al. (1977). However, of major importance are the publications of Bardunov (1965, 1969) on mosses of the Eastern Sayan Mountains and Central Siberia. As a result of determinations of the collections of Expeditions I and II to the Khentei Mountains and of two private Mongolian collections (over 3600 specimens), 179 species of mosses, 5 species of peat mosses and 13 species of hepatics have been identified. In this paper, only more sparsely distributed taxa are listed. The main members of the moss flora are represented by common forest and epilithic species of the taiga associated with Larix sibirica-Pinus sibirica-Betula spp. Among the rich collections from Mongolia, there 007-2745/81/339-343$0.65/0