Hypnodendron comosum - community in Tasmania

Hypnodendron comosum var. comosum, H. c. var. sieberi and H. vitiense ssp. australe, endemic in SE Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand and throught to be archaic taxa form a typical dendroid community. The dendroid taxa reach high cover values and characterize the feature of the feature of the community 9"miniature forest"), which is described for the first time from Tasmania. On loamy and humic soil the number of species of the community is low, increasing on decaying wood. The community is a complementary one to those described from New Zealand (Frey & Beever 1995), not studied there. It is assumed that such dendroid bryophyte communities from nowadays temperate rainforests of the southern hemisphere represnt a relict vegetation of the forest floor of the former Gondwanalandic forest.