General information

Hi everyone,

My name is Cornelia Yu and I'm setting up this blog for my Non-vascular Organisms Class. This is a class I'm taking right now (Fall 2015) at Hiram College as a Senior student discussing about mosses, liverworts, hornworts, fungi, lichens, slime molds and algae.

In this blog, I will basically post pictures of my specimens collections and their information as well as how I key them out.

There are two books I will be using the most and if not specially mentioned, then the specimens are keyed by these following 2 books:

           Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians by Karl B. McKnight, Joseph R. Rohrer, Kirsten McKnight Ward and Warren J. Perdrizet. This book is in the series of the Princeton Field Guides and was published by Princeton University Press with copyright @ 2013. This is my "moss book".
           Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora (Second Edition).  This book was printed by Ten Speed Press with copyright @ 1979 and 1986. This is my "fungus book".


For moss keying, there are 3 key features according to the book that will decide which key we should go to:

1. Growth form
     ·Acrocarp--stems simple or sparsely forked, with the forks oftem running parallel to each other. Plants packed together like tufts of carpet. Capsules arise from end or tip of stem, but later growth can disguise this trait. Individual stems typically stand upright, but the exceptions are still rarely branched.
     ·Peat moss--stems stand upright with branches in clusters of 3 or more. Some branches spread outward and others hang down along the stem. Many branches are crowded at the top, forming a mop-like head.
     ·Pleurocaro--stems branch freely and at a wide angle, some irregularly, others in a pinnate pattern, i.e., regularly divided into opposite branches. Plants twine together to form mats. Capsules arise midstem. Stems typically trail along the ground or arch upward; a few stand on end rather than creep horizontally, but they still branch frequently.

2. Leaf shape
       ·Lance--narrowly ytiangular, with generally straight rather than curved sides that gradually taper to a point.
       ·Hairlike--very long and narrow, appearing "hairlike" to the naked eye.
       ·Leafless--capsules arise from mat of algal-like threads, lacking regular branches and leaves.
       ·Tongue--generally straight-sided coming to an abrupt tip, like a tongue or strap.
       ·Ovate--egg-shaped, arrowhead-shaped or with curved or bulging sides; relatively shorter and wider than lance-shaped leaves.
       ·Sickle--triangular or oval-shaped leaves tapering to a fine point curved to one side.
       ·Peat moss--branch and stem leaves of differing shape. Branch leaves ovate to lance-shaped and cupped. Stem leaves triangular to tongue-shaped and flat.

3. Midrib
       ·Lance with midrib
       ·Lance without midrib
       ·Ovate with midrib
       ·Ovate without midrib
       ·Sickle with midrib
       ·Sickle without midrib
       ·All tongue-shaped leaves have a midrib
       ·All hairlike leaves have a midrib


Moreover, since I'm more interested in the mosses right now, there will be a lot of mosses posted. In addition, if I'm going to keep updating this blog when the class is finished (we only have to post 20 specimens for the class), it will basically all be mosses.

I guess that's everything for now. Please enjoy your time with non-vascular organisms while reading posts from this blog! ^_^