After identifying 1,410 bryophytes and lichens this winter I was ready for a break to do something completely different such as book binding... a moss flora. Some years ago I acquired a facsimile of Robert Ireland's, Moss Flora of the Maritime Provinces, sent to me by the Canadian Museum of Nature. The copy, unfortunately, was in a three-ring binder and it's pages prone to tearing out -so I seldom referred to it.
I had time to bind it properly starting with a double-fan binding with two layers of cloth for the super forming the text block. I made a square back bradel binding but not before I made my own book cloth, headbands, and book ribbon. I used the coversheet, spine-sheet, and the cardboard from the three-ring binder for the hardcover book. Now I've got a durable book that lies flat and that I can use and appreciate more. I love this short piece about Lilla Leach who discovered nothing less than a woody plant, Kalmiopsis leachiana, which is the namesake of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in southwest Oregon. It is said that her suitor, "John Leach, finally won her hand by assuring her he knew how to handle pack animals and 'could take her where the cake-eating botanists could never get.'"
Sounds like my supportive wife who successfully championed for a camper atop a 4WD vehicle to go farther and stay out longer any time of year. Amen. This summer while working I had the fortune to encounter both Tingiopsidium sonomense AND T. isidiatum. Exotic mysteries these are to me no more! We remember when these were, respectively, Koerberia sonomensis and Vestergrenopsis isidiata. I feel fortunate to have both of these commingling on my phone.
Witness the phenomenon of goblin's gold: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oSrL4FYzTww A miniature aurora borealis? St. Elmo's fire?? The green flash??? Here is the shifting reflection of Schistostega pennata's protonemata. A visually tantalizing display of delicate tissue growing on unstable soil that disintegrates and disappears upon touch, vexing goblins that haunt it's dark habitat. Encountered in the Carbon River area while inventorying Mt. Rainier National Park, WA, USA, August 23, 2023.Departing the Kigluaik Mts. for the final time. It's a wrap for Non-vascular botany and plot work. Seward Peninsula, AK, USA, August 2, 2023.
The terricolous fruticose lichens of northwestern coastal Alaska are rich and diverse. Siphula ceratites and Cladonia nipponica were exciting surprises during my work there.
This spring I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a moss identification workshop in Fairbanks, AK. Support was provided by Blaine and Katie Spellman, Mark Winterstein, Jamin Johanson, Jessica Lene-Ashley, and John Andreoni. Participants were from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Soil and Plant Science Division, University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Bonanza Crk Long Term Ecological Research, and Ontario. Thank you everyone for helping make this a fun learning experience and success!
Below is Blaine's summary of the workshop published the NRCS Weekly Update. It was an honor to be invited and present about the many unique and rare bryophytes and lichens of southwest Oregon, a floristic hotspot. Thank you NPSO Siskiyou! I had the pleasure of reviewing this article this winter about the fascinating subject of "Yukon ice patches: Bryophyte generation from ancient ice-entombed assemblages" by Brittney L. Miller.
The Native Plant Society of Oregon provided me with their Field Research Grant to support the continuation of my non-vascular plant inventory of Steens Mt., OR. This field work resulted in 14 species new to Steens Mt. and made the project closer to completion by making the mountain a wee bit "smaller". Thank you NPSO!
I've been a bryologist, lichenologist, and botanist for over twenty years, here's my last two weeks. This winter I refurbished one of the classic Leitz Wetzlar microscopes from Germany, circa 1954. Very nice images were captured by photographing Sphagnum capillifolium with dark field using the focus stacking setting on a new camera, an Olympus TG 6.
The following excerpt describes some of the challenges and hazards inherent in fieldwork, in this case in the high desert.
“An example of a not uncommon series of days included descending from near the top of Steens Mt. (~10,000’) down 2,500’ to the bottom of a gorge, surveying for small scale plants in nooks and crannies throughout the day then ascending back out from 7,500’ while warding off dehydration, sun exposure, high temperatures, the effects of high elevation, thick regional wildfire smoke, unstable footing, navigation, caution not to get “cliffed-out” on a terrace, close monitoring of the sky for quick forming thunderstorms and their lightening, and in places below 6,500’ watching every single footfall for rattlesnakes.” -Preliminary Inventory Results of the Bryophytes & Lichens of Steens Mt., OR, David Kofranek, May 2019 |