“…In bryophytes, cryptic speciation has been increasingly reported (e.g., Heinrichs et al, 2010;Kreier et al, 2010;Orzechowska et al, 2010;Ramaiya et al, 2010) and might offer an explanation for one of the most striking biogeographic features of bryophytes, that is, the extremely low rates of endemism of their floras (see Vanderpoorten et al, 2010a for review). In Macaronesia for example, a biogeographic region comprised of the mid-Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands, and which is recognized as an important floristic area for conservation within the European-Mediterranean climate region (Médail and Quezel, 1997), less than 2% of species are endemic to the Canarian archipelago, strongly paling in comparison with the 40% endemism rates observed in angiosperms (Vanderpoorten et al, 2010a).…”