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From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Mosses
Message-ID: <1990Jul26.150816.20767@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 90 15:08:16 GMT
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Reply-To: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Organization: School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 19

On my vacation to Alaska this summer I collected a bunch of plants for
my terrarium. Ferns, mosses, liverworts, and Lycopodium.

I am able to identify the ferns and Lycopodium with no problem.

However I have found no useful books about mosses and liverworts.
I do have a book, but it is very in-useful. It tries to have you
identify things my a most complicated tree-type scheme, where you have
to make dozens of tests, and one boo-boo and you are out of luck.
Plus the illustrations are poor and some tests requires microscopic
examination and even spores or spore cases!

Does anybody have any suggestions on a better way.

Are there any good books on mosses and liverworts? I even found books
specific to the "flora of Alaska" - but, disgustingly, they are incomplete - 
they leave out mosses and liverworts (algae too).

Doug McDonald (mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu)