through the pages looking for a match one thus subliminally acquired some idea of the
variety of form of a whole range of liverworts. Dixon's book also had Jameson's sketches,
but these, apart from a few of the very small species which were drawn as entire plants,
merely consisted of a drawing of a typical leaf, any gemmae or bulbils if present and a
capsule if produced by the taxon in the U.K. Using the book on my own was a terrible
struggle, with few successful I.Ds. But then in 1955 Eric Watson came to the rescue with
his much acclaimed British Mosses and Liverworts with detailed sketches of large
numbers of species and extensive chatty text summaries, plus end notes on rarer species
and their salient features. Even today, it is probably the best starter for any beginner in
bryology. Unfortunately, now in its 1981 3rd edition, CUP insist on pricing it at a ludicrous
£53, a major turn off for a budding bryologist. Looking through the latest Oxford
University Press catalogue it is clear that OUP keep all their books available at less than
£30, a far more sensible marketing strategy. By the 1970s it was clear that a modern
treatment of the British bryophyte flora was needed and Tony Smith came to the rescue
with The Moss Flora of Britain and Ireland, 1978. CUP. The hardback version was
then superseded in 1980 by a paperback edition with numerous corrections, and it
remained the standard moss flora until this century. It had the advantage of covering in
detail the species not covered in Watson's book. Essentially however it was much along
the same lines as that by Dixon, with drawings largely restricted to that of the leaves and
capsules, making it very difficult for the beginner to get started, unless they gestated on
Watson's book initially. Meanwhile elsewhere in the world, spectacular bryophyte floras
were appearing with detailed drawings of the plants, many of them giving the habit of a
good-sized chunk. The Atlas van de Nederlandse Bladmossen by J. Landwehr and J.J.
Barkman, 1966. KNNV; was just the sort of thing beginners were looking for, and in
1980 it was followed by the even more spectacular Atlas Nederlandse Levermossen.
Meanwhile Jean Paton had been working on a really comprehensive Liverwort flora,
very much along the lines of The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America
East of the 100th meridian in six large volumes 1966-1992 by Rudolf Schuster; but it
was taking a long time and CUP eventually awarded the contract for a new British and
Irish Liverwort Flora to Tony Smith, and he produced The Liverworts of Britain and
Ireland. CUP. in 1990. Jean Paton's The Liverwort Flora of the British Isles, Harley
Books, finally appeared in 1999. Although a comprehensive flora with extensive drawings
it is a massive exhaustive tome and at £88 is not likely to be purchased as a starter
volume by the beginner. Tony Smith's book however is now out of date and at £38 is still
a major outlay for a beginner. His attempt to update The Moss Flora of Britain and
Ireland as a 2nd edition in 2004, left the large numbers of would be bryologists who
bought it feeling very ripped off, as CUP printed and published an uncorrected version
with an unworkable main key to genera. Although this was put right in 2006 with a
corrected version, and is now marketed at a more reasonable £68, it is not a beginner's
book.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 59, May 2009
11