Mosses Lichens & Ferns of Northwest North America

by Dale H. Vitt, Janet E. Marsh, Robin B. Bovey

The classic guide to the bryophytes of the West is back in print. This book brings the small yet beautiful world of mosses, liverworts, lichens, and ferns to those interested in understanding more about their surroundings. These plants are relatively inconspicuous plants which nonetheless play significant roles in the ecology of forests and tundra.

Genres: Nature, Natural History, Science, Nonfiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book for Search and Rescue... I do some tracking, and I thought it would behoove me to know a little bit more about the kinds of mosses that our subjects walk through, and what their life cycles and habitats are like in greater detail. Little did I know how deep of an area it was, or how poorly explored! I appreciate the efforts of the authors to make species identification more accessible, though with many of the lichens, one just needs a lab. Their descriptions of the differentiating characteristics of each species are sometimes necessarily dry, but are sometimes evocative to flatly hilarious. (I had threatened to write an "Annoying Mosses of Western Washington" monograph for SAR, but I don't know if I could possibly be as funny as the authors here were! Some of their turns of phrase can't be bettered.) In the end this is a far more wide-ranging guide than I actually needed, but I did find the four or so species of mosses that we most commonly encounter, and I'll just have to keep my eye out (and maybe a macro lens) while hiking for the rest.

[Mila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that mosses, lichens, ferns and liverworts are "terrestrial green cryptogams". This was not only a book meant to be used to help identify the above; it was full of tidbits about them. Horsetails, and club mosses are in the same section as ferns because they are Tracheophytes (along with flowers and conifers). Bryophytes are mosses, liverworts and hornworts. "Poikilohydry" is physiological drought tolerance which mosses are really good at. Marchantia polymorpha is the largest thalloid liverwort and is a pernicious weed in nurseries. Now I have a name for what I've brought home often. "Lichens are fungi that have established a symbiotic relationship with certain species of algae". Some have been given common names: Bryoria is "witches hair lichen". Cladina is "reindeer lichen". Ptilium cristacastensis is "knight's plume moss". Rhytidiadelphus lorens is "feather moss". To make it easier to identify them, the book separates the different kinds of mosses: sphagnum, acrocarpous, and pleurocarpous; liverworts: thalloid; lichens: crustose, foliose, and fruticose. The habitat symbols and map are very handy as well.