Background and Aims:

The Macarao National Park is a protected area located near the city of Caracas, capital of Venezuela. Despite its strategic location, it is biologically little explored; the lack of bryological knowledge is substantial. The fundamental objective of this work was the inventory of the bryophytes of the Macarao National Park.

Methods:

Three actions were proposed to evaluate the flora of mosses, liverworts and anthocyanins of this park: bibliographic review of reports for the study area, herbarium review of different national (CAR, MY, VEN) and foreign herbaria (MO, NY, TROPICOS), and floristic inventory made on all available substrates across seven locations located between 1500 and 2600 m a.s.l. The collected specimens were identified with specialized taxonomic keys; subsequently, they were deposited in the herbaria MO and VEN.

Key results:

Seventy-six percent of the information was obtained from the floristic inventory, 19% from the bibliographic review and 5% from herbarium material. In this way, a list was prepared consisting of 114 species, distributed in 77 genera and 42 families of bryophytes (70 species of mosses and 44 liverworts). The families with the highest number of species were Lejeuneaceae (13 genera/21 species), Orthotrichaceae (2/7), Sematophyllaceae (3/7), Fissidentaceae (1/6), Pilotrichaceae (4/4) and Neckeraceae (5/5).

Conclusions:

Among the highlighted results, 87 new records are included for Macarao National Park and Calymperes tenerum is reported for Venezuela for the first time. It is recommended to include, according to the IUCN criteria, Steerecleus serrulatus, Rhaphidorrhynchium decurvifolium as vulnerable species within the Venezuelan bryoflora.