British Bryological Society Mosses and Liverworts of Britain and Ireland a field guide
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Date of last review
1
2980
Thu 7, October, 2010
Recommended By
Average Purchase Price
100% of reviewers
None indicated
Quality
Value
Performance
10.00
10.00
9.00
Description:
This book is the only up-to-date, user-friendly guide to identifying British and Irish bryophytes in the field, with hundreds of colour photographs and black and white drawings showing what species look like, together with notes on how to identify and distinguish similar species, and habitat notes and distribution maps showing where they occur.
Registered: August 2008 Location: North Tyneside Posts: 711
Review Date: Thu 7, October, 2010
Would you recommend it? Yes |
Total Spent: None indicated| Rating: 9
Strengths:
Ease of use
Weaknesses:
Limited line drawings
A great A5 sized, protective covered, paperback introductory field guide to the bryophyte flora of the British Isles. It is very well written with very little technical vocabulary. It's no light-weight though with 848 pages covering 75% of British and Irish bryophytes.
The layout of the field guide is very user-friendly, a short introduction on bryophytes, how to use the field guide and equipment that might prove useful.
Following this there is a gallery of line drawn common species that one might find. I did test this and it has some merit.
The keys are where this book shines. Very easy to use and accompanied by some line drawings to help in making a decision where some confusion might arise.. They work admirably, getting to species quite often and to at least genus every time. In the most part the only equipment needed is a hand lens
The main body of the book comprises of species accounts. Each to a single page. Each species account covers a paragraph on identification, similar species and habitat. There are colour photo's with lines marking key points. Some line drawings in the margins to help with any ambiguity but more on this anon.
The only real disappointment I have found is the lack of line drawings for each species covered. For someone looking into bryophyte identity from scratch this could prove frustrating. Having said that this field guide defiantly would be my recommendation for a beginner, there is no comparison out there!
