The 2014 Crum Workshop: Bryophytes of the Allegheny Highlands of West Virginia

Abstract

We inventoried bryophytes in Canaan Valley and Blackwater Falls State Resort Parks and in Dolly Sods Wilderness (Monongahela National Forest) during the four-day Crum Workshop. We found a total of 170 species with 140 mosses and 30 liverworts (including collections made before and after the Workshop) on Pottsville sandstone, Greenbrier limestone, and organic substrates in red spruce (Picea rubens)-northern hardwood forests and Sphagnum-dominated fens. About 84% of the species have very broad distributions (63% northern Northern Hemisphere, 21% wide - ranging to the southern Southern Hemisphere), whereas 16% are endemic to the Americas. Five state records include two circumpolar-montane species (Plagiothecium nemorale and Philonotis capillaris), two North American endemics (Brachythecium falcatum and Orthotrichum parvulum), and one globally wide species (Campylopus flexuosus). This was the second Appalachian report for the disjunctive, suboceanic, temperate moss C. flexuosus.