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Dr M’s Marvellous Mosses: Introduction

Dr M is particularly fond of bryophytes and the following described two days spent with his students on the MSc Plant Diversity and MSc SISS at University of Reading getting to know these wonderful little green things intimately!


London’s first Moss Trail!

Dr M is delighted to present this post on London’s first moss trail at the South London Botanical Institute (SLBI), based in Tulse Hill, launched London’s first Moss Trail in its garden on Saturday 14 March 2015. The Moss Trail features twelve different kinds of moss, all clearly labelled in a trail around the garden. The Moss Trail launch was part of the SLBI’s “Moss Day”
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A tale of two willows

The Willow family – Salicaceae – includes two main genera – Willows and the Poplars – a family of deciduous trees and shrubs with (usually) simple, alternate leaves with stipules. The flowers are in catkins and there is no perianth (i.e. no obvious petals or sepals). There are 2 carpels and the fruit is a one-celled capsule which bursts to release the many silky
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Voyages round my lichen twigs #3 – Gloria to Xanthoria!

You know it by now, Dr M is particularly fond of lichens!  And especially excited that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists. In celebration of this union, Dr M has embarked on a series of music videos collectively entitled “a voyage round my lichen twigs” and all inspired by
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Voyages round my lichen twigs #2 crustose is as crustose does

Dr M is particularly fond of lichens and especially delighted that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists. In celebration of this union, Dr M has embarked on a series of music videos collectively entitled “a voyage round my lichen twigs” and all inspired by the diversity of lichens encountered
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Voyages round my lichen twigs #1 “awakened by rain”

Dr M is particularly fond of lichens and especially delighted that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists.


Reading Science Week – the Symbiosis project!

The resident exhibition for Reading Science Week was the Imagining Science Symbiosis Project about which Dr M has posted before and within which Dr M is deeply embedded!


Dr M’s Marvellous Mosses: 9 Hypnales – (most of) the Pleurocarps

A very large order comprising most of the pleurocarpous mosses with perhaps 4400 species world-wide!


Dr M’s Marvellous Mosses: 8 Orthotrichales

An order of epiphytic acrocarps, about 100 species world-wide and forming cushions on trees or rocks. The leaves are lanceolate and recurved at the margin, and are either overlapping when dry (e.g. Orthotrichum) or twisted when dry (e.g. Ulota).


Dr M’s Marvellous Mosses: 7 Booby-licious Bryales

Bryales is a large order of acrocarpous mosses containing about 500 species world-wide, and found growing on soil, rocks and walls.