New Record of the Bottle Liverworts Sphaerocarpos Donnellii Aust. for Iraq and Middle East Countries

Basheer Ali Basheer Al-Ni'Ma

doi:10.24996/ijs.2021.62.10.4

Abstract

The Order Sphaerocarpales of the bottle liverwort consists of five genera, among which Sphaerocarpos in turn consists of 8-9 species. The genus is nearly worldwide distributed, but disjunct, sporadic, and localized throughout the range in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. According to the published checklist, only two species of Sphaerocarpos were recorded in the middle east countries. These are S. texanus and S. michelii, both were found in Turkey, while only the latter was found in Iraq. By the current study, an additional species, S. donnellii, will be added to the byroflora of the Middle East (south west Asia) region. A specimen of this species was found in Mosul city, Nineveh province, Iraq, grown on loamy soil in a house garden.

Highlights

A worldwide revision of the genus Sphaerocarpos is over 100 years old [1]; other revision work focuses on individual geographic areas, including South Africa [2[, North America [36], California [7], Europe [8, 9], and France [10]
In the middle east countries, including, the adjacent countries of Iraq (Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia), the genus Sphaerocarpos was represented by two species, i.e. S. texanus and S. michelii, which were found in Turkey only [14, 17], while in Iraq, the genus Sphaerocarpos was represented by S. michelii only, which was recorded by Al-Ni'ma [18]
MATERIALS AND METHODS The specimen was collected in the 13th of February 2013 from a house garden located in Mosul city, North of Iraq, found growing on loamy soil under a citrus tree

Summary

Introduction

A worldwide revision of the genus Sphaerocarpos is over 100 years old [1]; other revision work focuses on individual geographic areas, including South Africa [2[ , North America [36], California [7], Europe [8, 9], and France [10]. S. michelii ‫ و‬S. texanus ‫دول جنهب شرق آسيا وهما‬ S. ‫ وفي خلال العمل الحالي سهف يتم إضافة نهع جديد هه‬.‫) وجد في الع ارق‬S. michelii( ‫الثاني‬ ‫ وجدت عينات من هذا النهع في‬.)‫ على الفله ار الح اززية لمنطقة الشرق الأوسط INTRODUCTION A worldwide revision of the genus Sphaerocarpos is over 100 years old [1]; other revision work focuses on individual geographic areas, including South Africa [2[ , North America [36], California [7], Europe [8, 9], and France [10].

Results

Conclusion