Mosses, Liverworts, and Hornworts: A Field Guide to the Common Bryophytes of the Northeast Paperback – Illustrated, May 15, 2016

Since retirement, I have been spending more time outdoors, and a considerable amount of that doing nature photography. I love the grand landscape and the concentrated beauty of small things. I have accumulated a number of field guides over the years ... birds, mammals, flowers even animal skulls. But since my primary interest is the photograph, I carry about 20 pounds of gear. I frankly cannot carry a field guide for every animate species I might find interesting. But a photograph can be obtained and the field guide used at home. Most flowers, trees, birds, salamanders, reptiles, dragonflies, insects, spiders ... can be uniquely identified from a good set of images. Not all, of course, but most. And among the difficult ones, I'm happy to get to the family or genus level. So a field guide with excellent pictures is important to me.The second feature of field guides is that, for many groups of living organisms, no field guide is comprehensive. Birds and trees for example are well characterized and a regional field guide can have all the known species in a reasonable size volume. This is not true for insects and spiders, and in this case, mosses, even at the regional level. So the best you can hope for is a volume of 'common' species.This book has about the same number of mosses as McKnight, et al, 'Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians'. I was drawn to this book because it includes liverworts and hornworts. (Have found a number of liverworts, never a hornwort!) Both contain good images and species accounts. The images in this volume are larger than in McKnight (bigger is better), and I like the fact that the dichotomous keys head up each grouping. This book adds range maps which can help eliminate similar species. I have not compared their species lists to determine overlap. But it's a fact; you cannot have too many field guides!Highly recommended ...

Fantastic field guide, though I'll be using it in my studio more than outside. Writing is concise, complete (enough), crisp. Good use of humor (in moderation). Photos are clear enough (I've done a lot of macro photography, and know it's hard to produce perfect images of small plants that show their multiple planes -- these are fine). His introduction to the biology, ecology, etc is stellar -- just what I was hoping to find. I'm moving to Scotland next year, and I know the bryophytes over there will be different, even though the higher taxa (classes, orders, families) will be similar, and that's what I'm interested in more than species or even genus ID. Overall a fine book.

I bought this together with McKnight et al Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians and highly recommend both guides. They complement each other well. Pope's main advantage is the inclusion of liverworts. Since some with tiny leaves look very moss-like, that's handy. Pope's major drawback for newbies such as myself is the profligate use of bryo-jargon. Prepare to spend a good bit of time flipping back and forth between key and glossary. McKnight et al take the blissfully opposite approach to terminology. Personally, I prefer "midrib" to "costa" and don't covet membership in another technical guild. All I want is a good name for a moss I don't recognize.

I love this book! Very accessible guide for even an amateur bryologist like myself: species are described in detail with full color photographs, habitat types, and comparisons to similar species. Plus, the chapters have handy summaries of larger taxonomic groups, which can help you narrow down your choices when trying to identify something.

Mosses, Liverworts and Hornworts – A Field Guide to Common Bryophytes of the Northeast (2016) by Ralph Pope is a well thought out publication. There is a small colour photograph provided for each species, often supplemented by photographs or line drawings of their sporophytes. For each species covered there is a general description, notes of similar species, and a general distribution map for northeastern North America. Also included are habitat notes and background information pertaining to the species name and its meaning.The book begins with a good introduction for the collection and identification of bryophytes. The main body of book is split into 4 main sections, Sphagnum mosses, acrocarpous mosses, pleurocarpous mosses, Liverworts & Hornworts. It is a very good introduction to the larger more conspicuous bryophytes that are found in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, New York and the northeastern-Atlantic states.

Just got this to identify some local mosses for collecting and cultivating. As a beginner, this book is extremely detailed and I'd say a little advanced. While it leaves out a lot of introduction to mosses and brachyphyte identification, i.e. some basics of plant ecology, the different categories of plants listed and they're differences, adding this info would make the book much longer and it wouldn't be a field guide.An excellent resource on a very specific, and esoteric subject.

Fantastic identification book! This is the one I've searched for. I have bought several books on non-vascular plant identification and paid much more than this. But this book, by far, is the clearest and has the best photographs of any of the other books I own on this subject. I highly recommend this one!

Perfect. Just what I was looking for.