The New York Botanical Garden American Bryophyte Catalog. Phase II. Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies

New York Botanical Garden, Bronx NY

Investigators

Abstract

The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium houses the largest collection of bryophyte specimens in the Western Hemisphere and is among the five largest bryophyte herbaria in the world. Since the inception of the institution in the late 1800's the focus of the institution has been on the flora of the Americas, and the bryophyte herbarium has unequalled depth in both historical and modern bryophyte collections. The NYBG herbarium has served as a major resource for all the major floristic treatments on American bryophytes published in this century. The project will catalogue and publish data from the 120,000 specimens of bryophytes from Central America, Mexico and the West Indies. The data made available as a result of this project will expedite research on bryophytes in these taxonomically and phytogeographically critical regions. When overlaid with data sets from other groups of organisms, the data compiled in the course of this project will deepen our understanding of the biodiversity of the areas covered. Specimen and authority records created in the course of this project will be made available in several ways to augment other specimen cataloguing endeavors.