Uncertain

New Zealand

Political Region

Fife, A.J. (2017)

Macromitrium wellingtonianum Vitt (1983, p. 61) is rejected from the N.Z. flora. The identity and status of this species in N.Z. has been problematic since its description. Vitt cited a type collected by Balázs at “Tararua Range, 60 km North of Wellington, 800 metres elev.,” on 28 Dec. 1972. Dr. Dénes Balázs was a Hungarian geographer who collected bryophytes for the EGR herbarium. In 1972–73 Balázs travelled in the Philippines, New Guinea, eastern mainland Australia and N.Z. (T. Pócs, pers. comm., 5 May 2011). Vitt & Ramsay (1985a, p. 411) subsequently placed M. wellingtonianum in the synonymy of M. angulatum Mitt., a species with a Samoan type. Macromitrium wellingtonianum/angulatum has not been re-found in N.Z. for over 40 years, despite it being a morphologically distinctive species in a N.Z context. The Tararua Range has been assiduously collected in recent years by capable collectors. Rodney Lewington has made dedicated but unsuccessful trips to relocate M. wellingtonianum at its type locality. The most likely explanation for the alleged Tararua collection is that it is an incorrectly labelled specimen gathered elsewhere (probably in P.N.G.) during Balázs’s 1972–73 travels. Dale Vitt (pers. comm., 5 May 2011) considers N.Z. to be “well out of the range of the angulatum group” and believes that the Tararua Range is a “mistaken locality”.