Heft 149: Kürschner, Harald and Wolfgang Fey: Liverworts, Mosses and Hornworts of Southwest Asia (Marchantiophyta, Bryophyta, Anthoceratophyta). A systematic treatise with keys to genera and species occuring in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sinai Peninsula, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen (incl. Socotra Island). 2nd enla

The new, enlarged and revised flora replaces the former flora "The
Liverworts, Mosses and Hornworts of Southwest Asia (Marchantiophyta,
Bryophyta, Anthocerotophyta)" (2011) which was the first comprehensive
bryophyte flora and wellstructured synthesis of the current knowledge
available on the liverworts, mosses and hornworts of Southwest Asia
(Near and Middle East). As the former flora, this enlarged and revised
new edition covers Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sinai Peninsula, Syria,
Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (incl. the Socotra
Archipelago), summarized to a great extend as "Asia 5" in the "Index
Muscorum". Since the first publication in 2011, scientific interest in
bryophytes drastically increases, resulting in more than 70 additional
species, formerly unknown to the area and the first moss records to
Qatar Peninsula. In total, nearly 1400 taxa (255 liverworts, 1128
mosses, 5 hornworts) and nearly 2300 names and synonyms were
treated. The dichotomous keys provide families, genera and species,
including annotations to distribution and to critical, doubtful or
erroneously recorded species.

The flora includes all bryophyte taxa known to date within this large
and varied climatological and geomorphological area. It responds to
the tools of the Conservation on Biological Diversity and the Target 1
of the updated Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. Main goal
beside identification is to achieve a checklist of all known plants of
this often neglected and/or overlooked group of organisms. It is a
further step to integrate Southwest Asia (Near and Middle East) into
the Global Networ k of floristic knowledge.

As many of the species are important initial colonizers of bare rocks,
crusts and soil surfaces in steppe and desert regions of the area and
are forerunners in vascular plant colonization and succession, their
knowledge is of fundamental importance for understanding
phytodiversity and ecosystems and provides access to taxonomic
information, important for nature conservation. It enables us to give
a more precise answer to the question how many plant species occur in
the area and it is a step to enhanced education and scientific
understanding on the wealth of plant diversity.