Mosses are around us all year through but I find winter from December onwards is the best time to study them, when everything else had died back. We dont have to go far and the winter of 2006/7 has been such a good year for mosses and liverworts. With their mini-forests they are home to so many small creatures that, armed with a x10 lens we can enter another world of wildlife without going more than a few feet from the back door !

We are also fortunate that the new 'Flora of Hampshire' has a chapter devoted to the Bryophyte Flora of Hampshire by A.Crundell and the late Francis Rose with a short history of moss recording in the county.

It is amazing to know that around 500 species have been recorded in the county (out of the 1000 or more species found in the British Isles) but identification is very much for the expert. However, the local moss flora can provide many hours of enjoyable study after which one can perhaps recognise up to 50 species that can all be found locally. It does sometimes mean getting down on hands and knees in public places and I have found the best way is to bring a small sample home (where plentiful) and keep a moss garden where identification and photography are more convenient but ideally they have been photographed in the natural setting.

I have found that the easiest way to learn about mosses and remember their names is to grow them at home. I have recently been inspired to do this by reading the Moss Grower's Handbook by Michael Fletcher, which can be downloaded as a PDF file from the BBS website.
For those with a growing interest in mosses, I suggest joining the British Bryological Society, annual subs are £20. They have a file Journal, arrange field meetings and have a Reading Circle, a library and herbarium which BBS members can refer to. Further info. is on the Societies website. The photo gallery illustrates only the commonest and most prominent species and where best to find them.

All of our patches of ancient woodland, ponds and hedgerows have a good covering of mosses on tree trunks, shaded paths, banks and ditches but especially good areas for finding mosses are :-

Catherington Down has strips of woodland running across and that along the bottom (park- Lovedean Lane) contains oak, ash and hazel. Some of the oaks have fallen in recent years and although on their sides are still alive. One in particular is towards the north end and is literally covered in mosses, seen here (a) on 15.2.2007

The two main species present here are Mnium hornum with numerous capsules (b) and Atrichum undulatum (c) with close ups (x20) of Atrichum capsules and leaves (d) (e).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

In Yoell's Copse there are ancient wood banks and on the south side some sandy hollows which have some patches of the 'forest' moss Polytrichum and a few patches of Leafy Liverworts. There is a good mossy bank on the south side of Blendworth Lane as you leave the village centre. Yoell's Copse is unusual in having a number of Sessile oaks and Wild Service trees and many of the oaks have a good growth of mosses up the side particularly on the north side seen here on a sessile oak and identified as Isothecium myosuroides (a) (b) a species that is mostly confined to sessile oak (Quercus petraea). Habit and shape is similar to I. myurum that is also found in this and other local woods but more often on Quercus robur. In the second picture (b) x10 there is a tiny dark red tick with about six white hairs on its back, one of many creatures living amongst the mosses that are under 1mm in length. Perhaps one day I will get around to identifying the fauna of mosses !

Funaria hygrometrica is another frequent moss in local woods particularly where there has been a bonfire. Seen here at three different localities (c) Lowton's Copse, Clanfield (1994) and (d) The Holt near Pyle Farme and finally (e) a close-up study (x15) of a group of capsules of F.hygrometrica with their twisted seta.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

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