Writing floras for a whole continent can take some time. After the publication of the Liverwort Flora of Antarctica (Bednarek-Ochyra et al. 2000) and the Lichen Flora (Lichens of Antarctica and South Georgia, Øvstedal & Lewis Smith 2001), this latest volume on mosses finally completes the set of floras on the macroscopic cryptogams of Antarctica. What began fifty years ago with the pioneering work of Stanley and Dorothy Greene has at long last culminated in a hefty volume, serving as a reference to all those studying terrestrial (and aquatic) Antarctic ecosystems. It is also a very pleasant book to browse, even for one’s computer engineering son-in-law, with its many detailed - almost old fashioned - line drawings and its photographs, many of which are in colour.
The very first pages of the flora testify to the massive effort that the authors have made. Four pages of taxonomic and nomenclatural novelties list the changes in systematic insights. They also present evidence that the taxonomy and systematics of Antarctic bryophytes has been ‘very imprecise and controversial’ from the very beginning of Antarctic exploration, more than 180 years ago.
The flora begins with four chapters on the biogeography, geology, and climate of Antarctica, on the history of bryophyte studies, on the environment and ecology of mosses, and on their diversity and phytogeography.
The chapter on the environment and ecology I read with much interest, as it gives a good overview of where particular moss species are found. These chapters, 60+ pages in total, are likely to be the most interesting to non-taxonomists, as they not only explain the place and the role of the bryophytes in the terrestrial (and aquatic) ecosystems, but also underline the importance of a well researched taxonomic assessment of the status of bryophytes.
The major body of the flora (500+ pages) comprises the systematic accounts of the taxa (Chapter 6). This chapter provides a key to the genera of the Antarctic mosses, which proved easy to use. The specimen I used was from our collection, and with only the occasional consultation of the glossary, I arrived relatively effortless at Sanionia uncinata.
It is there, in the descriptions of the species, that the great value of the flora is really clear. The paragraphs on the taxonomic description and the systematic differentiation may not be interesting to many scientists other than bryologists, but the paragraphs on reproduction, habitat, and distribution of the species (supported with a world map and a map of (part of) the Antarctic, are very informative, even for non-botanists I would say.
I really admired the line drawings of the mosses: a page per species and without exception beautiful. They bring back memories of the 19th century (often German) volumes on plants and animals (Warburg, Brehm, Straszburger). My compliments to the artist, Halina Bednarek-Ochyra.
Experimental botany and plant ecology have grown in importance since the 1960s, both in resource allocation and in the numbers of students attending classes in these disciplines, always at the expense of taxonomy and systematics. With the ascent of biodiversity and molecular genetics as modern disciplines and hence the need for names and classification, we should count ourselves lucky that somewhere in this world people like Ryszard and Halina Ochyra, and Ron Lewis Smith exist whose painstaking work will now allow ecologists, ecophysiologists, and molecular geneticists to name their field specimens with more sophisticated names than ‘brown blob’ or ‘green sliver’.
The book is a must-have for Antarctic terrestrial and freshwater biologists.
