Category: BryologyPage 1 of 5

Studies in evolution, ecology and conservation of mosses, liverworts and hornworts at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

A sudden concentration of Bryologists

Despite a reputation for being rather a rare breed, this week, purely by chance, we have found ourselves with an embarrassment of bryologists at the Gardens. As well…

Redefining Aneura maxima and other Pellia-like Aneura

It seems that not only are the North American Aneura sharpii, the east Asian Aneura pellioides and the south-east Asian Aneura maxima all distinct species, but there are also two Pellia-like Aneura species in Europe.

Tidying up in Aneura

We have chosen a lectoype for Riccardia fuscovirens Lindb. (i.e., a type specimen that is chosen after a name has been published, but from the original specimens or illustrations that the author of the name would have been influenced by when they were first recognizing the taxon)

Narrowing down Aneura pinguis

The thalloid liverwort Aneura pinguis (L.) Dumort. (basionym Jungermannia pinguis L.) has been reported from a bewildering range of climates and habitats, from neotropical cloud forests to Scottish…

The simple thalloid liverwort Aneura – a digitized resource at RBGE

The simple thalloid liverwort Aneura has become a flagship genus for DNA barcoding at RBGE. Only a single widespread species, Aneura pinguis, is traditionally recognized in the UK,…

The Divine Bog-moss, Sphagnum divinum, found but now lost in Scotland

A recently described moss, Sphagnum divinum, the Divine Bog-moss, has been discovered in Britain and Ireland, though the only Scottish site yet found has sadly been lost. Its taxonomic discovery has a long history, starting over 250 years ago with a French explorer in southern South America.

Lindenberg’s Featherwort – liverwort child of the Atlantic

Geography, and particularly climate, have distinguished the extreme western parts of Scotland from the rest of the country for thousands of years. Many of our rarest plant species…

DNA sequence variation within the common urban moss Grimmia pulvinata

Even with a plant as common, and as commonly overlooked, as this pollution-tolerant urban bryophyte, there is still genetic diversity to explore and explain.

The hidden distinctiveness of a threatened British moss

When conservation scientists are trying to decide which species are most in need of protection, the main consideration is usually how likely they are to become extinct, as…

Polytrichum baits: cutting cleaned mosses

Following on from the rather unpredictable results we obtained from fragmenting duplicate aliquots of CTAB-extracted Polytrichum DNA in the Bioruptor, Isuru cleaned aliquots of IK31 and IK53 using…

Polytrichum baits: Cutting mosses

We started our lab work on the Polytrichum hybrid baits project on the 1st of October, by normalising some CTAB-extracted DNA with 0.1X TE to 55 µL of…

Generating a phylogeny of Polytrichum using hybrid baits

The current Next Gen Sequencing lab project at the Botanics involves looking at the phylogeny of Polytrichum section Polytrichum, using hybrid capture. The work will form part of…

How much liverwort do you need to get 50 μg of DNA?

There’s an exciting project, The 10KP (10,000 Plants) Genome Sequencing Project, that aims to sequence and characterize representative genomes from every major clade of embryophytes, green algae, and…

Unusual fern Lepisorus thunbergianus

I spotted this unusual fern on a shipment that had come to Vannucci from Japan. The 8-20cm long plants were clinging to the trunk and underside of branches…

What’s the matter with Nardia?

The leafy liverwort genus Nardia has five species that are known to occur in Scotland. Of these five species that occur in Scotland, four are described in Smith’s…

Untangling asetate Weissia species in the UK

Dr Des Callaghan spends rather a lot of his time chasing after rare things. He’s an environmental consultant with many strings to his bow, but a particular specialisation…

The liverwort genus Haplomitrium

Life gets littered with untold stories; here’s one that did get told, briefly, and then got forgotten. It was told at the Botany meeting in Austin in August…

Bryologising at Benmore

Four years ago, we took an overnight trip to one of the four gardens of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh: Benmore, in Argyll (Sunday 2nd – Monday 3rd February…

A violet for Walt

The Shawnee National Forest skirts the midwestern town of Carbondale, which is home to one of the campuses of Southern Illinois University. It’s also one of the prettiest…

A visit to the Californian type locality for the hornwort Phaeoceros proskaueri

One of North America’s endemic hornworts, Phaeoceros proskaueri Stotler, Crand.-Stotl. & W.T.Doyle [also known as Paraphymatoceros proskaueri (Stotler, Crand.-Stotl. & W.T.Doyle) J.C.Villarreal & Cargill] was described from plants collected in the Monterey Bay…

Complex thalloid Asterella lateralis from Panama’s Volcano

During a family holiday to Santiago, Panama in June/July 2011, we snuck in a short bryologising trip, first heading west along the Pan-American Highway, then north, to the…