XVI International Botanical Congess
My study includes the hepatic flora of Singapore and revision of the Southeast Asiatic genus Herbertus. Also I shall study the phylogeny of the family Herbertaceae. The study is a part of Timo Koponen´s research project The biodiversity in tropical Southeast Asia. The number of hepatic species, 53, reported from Singapore is probably too low. Also many of the reported species need confirmation. So far 23 genera have been identified from the material collected from Singapore November 1998. Herbertus S. Gray is a large hepatic genus containing 99 species. As many other primitive hepatic genera Herbertus is poorly known. Miller published a study on Herbertus species in Asia and Pacific Ocean area in 1968, but failed to solve the taxonomic problems of this difficult genus. I am going to study systematics and phylogeny of the genus using both morphological and DNA methods.