means of backstaircases and discreet trespass t more departments ors toiledlovingly over once-living objects. And so it I roduced to Len Ellis and t o t of us.
ically noted t mosses favor trees (“t bark, ar ury mosses and lic distinguisrue mosses aren’t actuallyfussy about , mosses aren’tactually muc group of plants e a touco Knos, publisill to be found on manylibrary s ttempt to popularize t.
tes is a busy realm, en tained ately Moss Flora of Britain and Ireland by A. J. E. Smito seven ain and Ireland are by no means outstandingly mossy places. “tropics are old me. A quiet, spare man, tural oryMuseum for ty-seven years and curator of tment since 1990. “You can go outinto a place like ts of Malaysia and find neies ive ease. I didt myself not long ago. I looked do had never beenrecorded.”
“So knoo be discovered?”
“Oh, no. No idea.”
You mig t many people in to devotelifetimes to tudy of somet in fact moss people number introngly about t. “Oold me, “tings can get very lively at times.”
I asked roversy.
“ell, ed on us by one of your countrymen,” ly, andopened a y reference aining illustrations of mosses ableceristic to tructed eye y one to anot,” apping a moss, “used to be one genus, Drepanocladus. No’s been reorganized intotorfia, and acoulis.”
“And did t lead to blows?” I asked perouch hopefully.
“ell, it made sense. It made perfect sense. But it meant a lot of reordering of collectionsand it put all t of date for a time, so t of, you know, grumbling.”
Mosses offer mysteries as o moss peopleanyiring type called anfordensis, y in California and later also found gro tip of England, but ered anyo exist in tions is anybody’s guess. “It’snoher revision.”
e nodded tfully.
must be compared o make sure t it been recorded already. tion must be ten and illustrationsprepared and t publisable journal. takesless tietury a great age for moss taxonomy. Mucury’s ed to untangling tions left beeen