Annotated checklist and keys to the Orthotrichaceae of Malawi, together with new country records for East Africa

Taxonomic notes on African Orthotrichaceae I. New synonymy inMacromitrium

“…By comparison, until recent years, the Macromitrium of tropical Africa and the East African Islands have received very little taxonomic attention and the large number of superfluous names and lack of identification keys have been a serious impediment to floristic and ecological studies. Progress has been made in these areas with taxonomic treatments of Macromitrium for Uganda (Wilbraham, 2008), Réunion Island (Ellis & Wilbraham, 2008;Wilbraham & Ellis, 2010) and Malawi (Wilbraham, 2015). Further work is required to confirm the status of all currently accepted names which have not yet been described in the literature since their publication and to resolve some taxonomically complex species groups.…”

“…African Distribution: Known from Madagascar, Mozambique, Réunion, South Africa, Tanzania (O'Shea, 2006), Kenya (Wilbraham, 2015) and Rodriguez (Wilbraham & Ellis, 2010). Excluded from the Malawi checklist by Wilbraham (2015).…”

“…Excluded from the Malawi checklist by Wilbraham (2015). World Distribution: Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern India (Montagne, 1842 In their protologue for M. sanctae-mariae, Renauld & Cardot (1895) distinguish their plant from M. mauritianum by its smaller size and the possession of branch leaves with a shortly excurrent to mucronate costa.…”

Macromitrium erythrocomum (Bryophyta: Orthotrichaceae), a new species from tropical Queensland, Australia

“…Taxonomic revisions in the genus have dealt primarily with geographical regions, including New Zealand (Vitt 1983), Australia Ramsay 1985a, 2012), Papua New Guinea (Vitt et al 1995), Mexico (Vitt 1994), Central America (Allen 1998(Allen , 2002, Africa (van Rooy and van Wijk 1992, Magill and van Rooy 1998, Wilbraham 2007, 2008, 2015, India (Gangulee 1976), Japan (Noguchi 1967), some Pacific Islands (Miller and Whittier 1990) and Indochina (Tan and Iwatsuki 1993). More recently a series of publications on Macromitrium in China (Jing et al 2007, Guo et al 2006 and New Caledonia (Thouvenot and Bardat 2010;Yong 2015, Thouvenot and and the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia (Guo et al 2006, Yong 2016 have increased knowledge for Asia and New Caledonia, but so far no world-wide revision has been undertaken.…”