The Distribution of British Liverworts: A Statistical Analysis

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Abstract
The records of 317 species and varieties of Hepaticae in the 152 vice-counties of Great Britain and Ireland have been subjected to association-analysis, yielding 25 ''normal'' groups of vice-counties and 47 ''inverse'' groups of species. The vice-county groups, and the distribution of a selection of the species groups, are illustrated in a series of maps. The ''normal'' analysis emphasizes the phytogeographical boundary between ''highland'' and ''lowland'' Britain (which is important also for mosses and flowering plants), and a line demarcating the areas with the richest hepatic floras farther west A number of clear geographical groupings emerge from the inverse analysis. Principal component analyses of the 2-way table give ordinations of the groups in which the first 3 components reflect abundance or richness; the contrast between the mountainous north and west and the south-eastern lowlands; and that between oceanic and montane distributions.