Abstract
In many ways, it is presumptuous for me to speak on the mosses of the tropical regions of China. Many consider the knowledge about the taxonomy, ecology, and geography of tropical bryophytes inadequate (Pócs 1982; Schuster 1983; Richards 1984), and this is certainly the case for the bryophytes of the tropical regions of China. The taxonomy of Chinese taxa is generally in a state of disarray. Early workers, both Chinese and others, have tended to describe new species based upon minor or inconsequential morphological characters and without apparent reference to related taxa found outside of China. This is clear from recent monographic studies that compared Chinese taxa with taxa throughout the world. For example, Su (1988) in his studies of Homaliodendron reduced the taxa of this genus for southeast Asia from over eighteen to four. Similar synonymizing has occurred in Forsstroemia (Stark 1987), Mniaceae (Koponen 1981), Grimmia and Schistidum (Cao & Vitt 1986) and the Calymperaceae (Lin & Reese 1989). Furthermore, monographers of groups have not always been able to study adequate collections from China as for example, Noguchi’s (1976) revision of the Meteoriaceae or Nyholm’s (1971) studies on the genus Atrichum. Even recent monographic or revisionary studies such as those on Leucodon (Akiyama 1988), Trachyloma (Miller & Manuel 1982), Glossadelphus (Tixier 1988), Entodon (Hu 1983), Ctenidium (Nishimura 1985), Forsstroemia (Stark 1987), Gollania (Higuchi 1985) or Fissidens (Li 1985) appear to have had only those collections from China for study that were available in herbaria outside of China. The cause for this probably rests with the difficulty of borrowing material from Chinese herbaria. Even when specimens are loaned by Chinese herbaria the borrower gets only a small sample of what may be present. Herbaria I have visited in China have huge backlogs of unprocessed or unidentified collections. In many cases these collections come from significant regions such as western Sichuan, Yunnan and the tropical regions of Xizang (Tibet).