Studies on Asian Species of Bazzania, Hepaticae, II

Abstract

Bazzania, a large genus of the Hepaticae, achieved a remarkable speciation in Asia, especially in the tropical region, and Meijer (1960) noted, the centre of the genus seems to lie in the Malaysian The Bazzania flora is relatively well-known only in a few restricted areas in Asia-Japan (Hattori & Mizutani 1958), the Himalayas (Mizutani 1967), Thailand (Kitagawa 1967) and North Vietnam (Pocs 1969). Meijer (1960) dealt with many Malaysian species and framed a very useful key for them but unfortunately his description of each species is too brief for a full understanding and accompanied by no illustration. Despite these contributions, a large number of species still remain little-known and it is often difficult to identify even the species occurring commonly in the region. As the genus represents one of the most conspicuous and abundant Hepaticae from the lowlands to the high mountains, especially in the mossy forests in tropical Asia, it is highly desirable to redescribe and illustrate those little-known species and clarify their taxonomy which has been in confusion. Through the fieldworks in Thailand and Malaya in 1965-66 and 1967, I became acquainted with the ecology of many tropical species of Bazzania, and I could examine the type specimens of many Asian species of Bazzania in some European herbaria, chiefly in the Stephani Herbarium in Geneva, when I was in Europe in 1969-70. This facilitates greatly to identify a number of specimens accumulated for the present studies ; they were collected by myself and by my colleagues in various localities in the region.