Lichen flora of Finland – short history of Finnish lichenology and updated species statistics
Abstract
We present some statistics on Finnish lichens. The knowledge on taxonomy, distribution and ecology of Finnish lichens is extremely uneven between different lichen groups. At present 1708 lichen species are known from Finland. The number has increased by 20.4 % compared to Vitikainen et al. (1997), even when more than 100 species have been synonymized or proven to be erroneously reported from Finland. Most species are rare in Finland, and 204 species are known from one locality only. The proportion of lichen species known from Finland compared to estimated global number of lichen species is higher than among any other species-rich organism group. This outlines the importance of lichens as a crucial part of the Finnish biodiversity. Data on accepted species described from Finland (n=225) is presented.
