Studies on African Riccardia types and related material

The genus Riccardia, Aneuraceae is often considered as puzzling by bryologists, because of its great polymorphism, and African species have not been studied as a whole for several years. A type revision of the African species assigned to Riccardia is presented in order to get a clear view of the historical background before examination of recent material. Among the type material, two new citations are reported for Africa: Riccardia inconspicua (Steph.) Reeb et Bardat belonging to the subgenus Thornoneura and Lobatiriccardia cf. coronopus (De Not.) Furuki belonging to the closed genus Lobatiriccardia, not known before for Africa. Some synonyms have been corrected. The major taxonomical decisions will only be presented with the future revision of the African genus, after complete examination of variations based on recent collections or herbaria specimen, and on the results given by complementary tools, such as molecular and architectural analysis.