Thanks for those links they were quite helpful.....
in response to trying to be more specific....
my main problem is that im basically starting from scratch on identifying different species of moss, and ive got loads of books but they are all quite complicated for someone starting out and don't even help with a starting point really.
say with birds, for example, you know from characteristics whether its say a raptor or a wader of whatever and know whereabouts to start narrowing it down,
but with moss i get utterly stuck as I dont know where to start.
Generally ive been starting backwards in a way by looking at photos and seeing if I have a moss which is similar, which sometimes works, but I still have doubts using this method as I end up with a species name but am not confident about it. Id much rather work down and be confident with say the family name rather that the full on species name that im not greatly confident with.
Basically if anyone can help with suggesting how to begin to start separting them into different classes and why etc. that would be really cool. Ive tried but im just not sure if im going along the right lines or not.
I hope I've made some sort of sense in all that I just wrote! sorry for the long post! any advice will be greatly appreciated!
thanks again for the links and friendly replies
ab301