The bryoflora of Mt. Everett, Taconic Mountains, Massachusetts

Abstract

An inventory of the bryophyte flora of Mt. Everett and vicinity, southwestern Massachusetts, a 795 m mountain with an unusual dwarf Pinus rigida (pitch pine) summit forest, produced records for 109 mosses and 45 liverworts (153 species and one variety). The summit pine vegetation contained some bryophytes known to occur in lowland pitch pine forest elsewhere in the northeastern United States, but no species unique to this vegetation type. Some species more characteristic of higher elevation mountains with red spruce-balsam fir forest in the northeastern United States were present in the summit and subsummit areas of Mt. Everett, especially the latter. These azonal northern bryophytes may be descendents of populations of species that were more abundant in the past. Species richness on the mountain increased from summit to lowland, and the subsummit area contained more species than the summit forest area. Substantial differences exist between the bryofloras of Mt. Everett and Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts, 70 km to the north, reflecting edaphic and climatic dissimilarities between the two areas. Bryum flaccidum, Plagiomnium medium, Pseudotaxiphyllum distichaceum, and Sphagnum quinquefarium, on the basis of collections from Mt. Everett and vicinity, are added to the flora of Massachusetts.