The first reports of the bryoflora of El Salvador are those of Calderón and Stanley (1921, 1941). They reported 11 species of mosses and a list of vascular plants. Despite further investigations (Steere and Chapman 1946, Winkler 1965, 1967, Menzel 1991), El Salvador remained among the bryologically least known countries in Central America (Salazar Allen et al. 2006). Recently a series of publications was started to increase the knowledge of the bryophytes of El Salvador. Part one (Búcaro et al. 2012) included an introduction to the status and problems of bryological research in the country and additional records from different moss families.

Fissidentaceae are a family of acrocarpous, haplolepideous mosses in the order Dicranales (Frey and Stech 2009). The family is monotypic with a single genus, Fissidens Hedw. Plants of Fissidens are characterized by distichous leaves that are differentiated into a vagin ant lamina consisting of two lamellae that clasp the stem, a dorsal lamina (opposite the vagin ant lamina), and an apical lamina (above the vaginant lamina). With about 450 species (Pursell 2007), Fissidens is one of the largest and most diverse genera of mosses (Pursell and Bruggeman-Nannenga 2004), and taxonomically notoriously difficult. Based on the available molecular data the genus seems to be monophyletic. However, so far only few species have been included in phylogenetic reconstructions of haplolepideous mosses (La Farge et al. 2000, Hedderson et al. 2004, Cox et al. 2010, Stech et al. 2012, Fedosov et al. 2016), and molecular analyses of Fissidens are still rare (Werner et al. 2009).

Fissidens species are predominantly distributed in the warm, humid tropics of the world (Pursell 2007). About 100 species are reported for the Neotropics, mostly from shady, moist, rarely aquatic sites. They grow on a variety of substrates, e.g. soil, rock, wood and termite mounds, from sea level to 4450 m a.s.l. (Pursell 2007).

Reports of Fissidens species for El Salvador are summarized in Table 1. Steere and Chapman (1946) were the first to report Fissidens species from the country. Winkler (1965) in a broader study of the bryophytes from El Salvador reported 17 species, the three from Steere and Chapman (1946) plus 14 new records. These correspond to 13 currently accepted species (Table 1). Menzel (1991) reported two more species. Delgadillo et al. (1995), however, registered only 13, and Pursell (1994, 2007) only six species of Fissidens for El Salvador (Table 1). This may partly be due to the fact that Menzel (1991) was not cited by these authors. Recent updates of the Fissidens flora of El Salvador by Búcaro et al. (2012) and Bruggeman-Nannenga and Pursell (2014) added five and one new species, respectively (Table 1). Fissidens bryoides Hedw. was in fact another species first reported for El Salvador by Búcaro et al. (2012) but not designated as such in that publication, following Menzel (1991) who reported collections of F. repandus under F. bryoides instead of under F. crispus Mont.

Table 1.

List of the Fissidens species reported from El Salvador, including synonyms used in the references cited. Species marked by an asterisk (^*) are new reports for El Salvador. The last column includes the number of specimens examined for this study (n = 92).

The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge and provide an updated list of the species of Fissidens of El Salvador, based on additional collections from the country.

Material and methods

A total of 92 specimens of Fissidens were studied, most of which were collected by the first author during three expeditions to El Salvador in the period from 2008 to 2012, and a few by Lic. Carlos A. Elías. These collections originated from 12 of the 14 departments of the country, were collected on a variety of substrates such as soil, talpetate (volcanic ash formation), rock, bricks and cement, tree trunks and bark, and spanned an altitudinal range from 129 to 2335 m a.s.l. Plants were identified morphologically using a binocular (Wild MSA) and compound microscope (Leitz Diaplan, Zeiss Axistar plus). Voucher specimens are deposited at ITIC, with some duplicates at L.

Results and discussion

The 92 Fissidens specimens studied included 21 species (Table 1). Of these, five are new for El Salvador: Fissidens costivelatus Brugg.-Nann., F. gardneri Mitt., F. goyazensis Broth., F. santa-clarensis Thér. and F. subulatus Mitt. Fissidens costivelatus is also new to the Neotropics. Details on the newly recorded species are given below. With the addition of these five, Fissidens is represented in El Salvador by 28 species (Table 1). This number is comparable to that reported from the other Central American countries (21–33 Fissidens species reported per country, Pursell 2007), except Nicaragua (nine species in Pursell 2007). The increase in the number of Fissidens species for El Salvador may at least partly be explained by our effort to collect in different habitats, including several urban or disturbed (semi-natural) areas, and may continue when collections from more areas and different habitats become available.