Overview

The Bryophytes of Australia is designed to provide an authoritative synthesis of Australia’s native and naturalised non-vascular plant biodiversity (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts). It is an offshoot from the Flora of Australia (www.ausflora.org.au) project which documents vascular plant diversity. These Flora projects include taxonomic information to support plant identification, including descriptions, distribution maps, images and diagnostic keys. The Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS, http://www.environment.gov.au/science/abrs), a unit within the Department of the Environment and Energy, manages the production of the Bryophytes and Flora of Australia, with content provided by taxonomic botanists.

This interactive, online platform was developed for the Flora of Australia, through a partnership project between the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS), Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria (CHAH, www.chah.gov.au) and the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA, www.ala.org.au). Between 1981 and 2015, the Flora of Australia was published as a series of hard copy volumes. Volume 51 "Mosses 1" of Flora of Australia,  published in 2006, included treatments of a subset of Australian moss families. 

On this platform, the Flora is structured as a collection of taxon profiles, arranged according to the national consensus taxonomy for Bryophytes (Australian Plant Census) held in the AusMoss shard of the National Species List database. Each taxon profile includes authoritative descriptive content provided by expert botanical taxonomists, and dynamically linked data from other Australian bioinformatics resources. Linked data includes: distribution maps from the Australasian Virtual Herbarium; Keys from Keybase; images from the Australian Plant Image Index; and taxonomy and nomenclatural information from the National Species List. The linked data and descriptive text can be updated by ABRS-approved users, allowing the information presented in the digital Flora to be taxonomically up-to-date, while maintaining the scientific rigour and authority of the original hard copy series. Similar to other online floras, users can identify plants by navigating through the taxonomic hierarchy and reviewing taxon profiles, or by working through the interactive dichotomous keys.

Delivering the Flora electronically provides an opportunity to build momentum to update and complete the Bryophytes of Australia. For example, through faster publication and direct contributions by experts online. However, substantial work is yet required to update and complete the Bryophytes of Australia. Available content includes descriptive accounts published in the hard copy Flora of Australia volume 51, and static PDF treatments published on the ABRS managed website Australian Mosses Online. This was last updated in 2016. The ABRS is working to update existing content in line with current taxonomic knowledge (largely guided by the Australian Plant Census), and systematically filling gaps to build a comprehensive and current Flora.

Help

More information about using the Flora and Bryophytes of Australia is available online at: www.ausflora.net.

Contact

We welcome any feedback on the platform and its content. Please contact the ABRS via email to abrs@dcceew.gov.au.

Contributing to the Flora

The ABRS, as administrators of the Flora, manage editorial access on the platform and provide assistance and editorial oversight for any contributions of new or updated content. If you would like to contribute to the Flora of Australia, please contact the ABRS for more information: abrs@dcceew.gov.au.

Disclaimer

While the ABRS is working to update and build the Flora in line with current taxonomy, there is much work yet to be done, and errors can occur. Please read our disclaimer.

Please note:

• Some of the Flora content may be out of date/ inconsistent with current taxonomy. In particular, this may include content delivered from the hard copy Flora volume and Australian Mosses Online. The ABRS is working to update this content as a priority. Over time, there may be a delay between published changes in taxonomy and related updates to Flora content.
• Available Bryophytes of Australia content currently represents about 40% of Australia's known mosses, liverworts and hornwort taxa. The ABRS is working to fill gaps in the flora, to provide descriptive accounts of the taxa currently not represented.
• The area covered by the Flora includes the six Australian States, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and immediate offshore island Territories. In the hard copy Flora series, Australian and State offshore Territories (Cocos (Keeling) Island, Christmas Island, Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island, the Coral Sea Territory, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, Heard Island and Macquarie Island) were covered separately in Volumes 49 and 50. The digital Flora will integrate updated legacy treatments and new treatments of taxa from all Australian offshore territories.
• The Flora is being built and updated in line with the national consensus taxonomy presented in the Australian Plant Census. As such, the Flora may present different taxon names or concepts to those applied in other jurisdictions, including state/regional floras.
• Linked data (outlined above) may not always align with descriptive text. The ABRS is working with botanical taxonomists to curate linked data in line with current taxonomic knowledge.
• Errors may arise in distribution maps from issues such as mis-identification of specimens and incorrect geocodes. These can be flagged directly on the erroneous record on the Australasian Virtual Herbarium website (https://avh.chah.org.au/), or by contacting the ABRS.
• Please refer to other relevant sources for accurate, up-to-date information about threat status, for example, the Species Profile and Threats Database: www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/sprat.pl.