POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

First record of large leafy liverwort Bazzania trilobata for co Derry (H40) since 1834! Also growing alongside it was Hymenophyllum tunbrigense which is a new county site too. Ness Country Park, Co. Derry. @bsbiireland.bsky.social @bbsbryology.bsky.social #bryophytes #ferns #botany

A final micrograph for today showing mycelium of an Epibryon sp. fungus inside liverwort cells. Most cells are infected but some in the lower part of the photo are healthy, as evidenced by the absence of hyphae and the presence of oil bodies.

Micrograph of a rhizoid gall caused by a chytrid on Bryum moss. The infected cell contains several zoosporangia, some of which have thread-like exit tubes that release flagellated spores. Chytrids are interesting fungi that mostly lack hyphae and have mobile spores.

Great to find the fungus Bryobroma scapaniae on Scapania undulata in Bannau Brycheiniog in Wales a few days ago. I think this is the third ever record of the species, and I see how it is very easy to miss, with the dark fruitbodies disguised against the black host stem. From a rock in a stream.

An opportunity of a lifetime for budding lichenologists. The National Trust and the Royal Botanics, Edinburgh are offering a PAID lichen traineeship in #Scotland! The work programme looks fascinating and a great opportunity to develop skills. Deadline: 3/10/2025. www.asva.co.uk/jobs/trainee...

Thanks, Jill! It was an unexpected honour and it has been amazing to see how my cohort has grown and developed over the years. Now, for the final push! @gpsep.bsky.social

Using one of my favourite bryophyte books to help with my thesis. It is a difficult read, densely packed with all kinds of interesting and almost forgotten information. I must have read it half a dozen times, and each time, I notice something profound that I either missed or didn't understand before

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

It's publication day for Mosses, Liverworts and Hornworts of the World! Immerse yourself in the miniature world of these fascinating plants, delve into their evolutionary past and look ahead to what might be in store for their future. More details at: shorturl.at/Zmtfe

Petoskey stone is a fossil coral and Michigan's state stone. This is from the Devonian Rockport quarry north of Alpena. Most Petoskey stone is found on the beach and rounded smooth. #FossilFriday

It was nice to go for a run past the spot that got me interested in bryophytes 10 years ago when I was staying at my grandfather's place. I was struck by the outerwordly appearance of the liverwort Conocephalum conicum, which was completely covering the wall of this bridge back then.

Happy to announce a new species bryophilous fungus, Bryocentria insolens. It is a parasite of Orthotrichaceae and known from Switzerland and Belgium so far. Thanks to my coauthors for finding great specimens - it all started from an AscoFrance post over 2 years ago. pfsyst.botany.pl/-Bryocentria...

New Article: "Ordovician marine Charophyceae and insights into land plant derivations" rdcu.be/eoSkA Marine Charophyceae fossils from the Upper Ordovician confirm that morphological innovations key to the evolution of terrestrial flora predate emergence of land plants.

phases of the dandelion

SoftAlign: End-to-end protein structures alignment https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.09.653096v1

It is out! CLAVATA in moss: not only meristems! Big thanks to @jillharrison.bsky.social , @ilichenmoss2.bsky.social and @newphyt.bsky.social

Read & RP. New preprint by Alex Gavrin from his time in our team - Inactivation of Medicago Glucan binding protein 1 (GBP1) offers: An approach to enhance symbiotic nitrogen fixation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The fungi that grow on bryophyte (moss) sporophytes are usually completely different to those on gametophytes. One feature is less apparent specificity in many, where generalists can grow on decaying vascular plants and "woody" moss sporophytes. This is a spore of Pleospora cf. herbarum ... 1/2

[🚨Pre-print alert🚨] Excited to share our findings on the enigmatic ericoid mycorrhizal symbiosis. 🔴For the first time we provide evidence that ericoid mycorrhizae evolved from ancestral arbuscular mycorrhizae through the co-option nutrient-dependent regulation 👇! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Leafy liverwort genomes shed light on the evolution of ericoid symbiosis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.01.646537v1

Amazing flower variation in Ficaria verna!

Some of the Ficaria verna weirdos flowering in the garden today

Another preprint! I was privileged to be asked to be involved with this project. Well done to everyone, particularly the first author, Hannah McConnell of Veronica di Stilio's lab at UW, who's tenacity and hard work really shines through 🙂 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #Plantscience #Fern #LEAFY

A hornwort, Phaeoceros laevis, I think, on a seepage. Lovely to see the plant is still abundant at the site.

1/6 Super excited to share with you our work on Marchantia intra-specific diversity and pan-genomics, just out @naturegenet.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... Everything on the discoveries in the thread by @chloe-beaulieu.bsky.social I want to emphasize 5 additional points:

Nice to find a patch of the bryophilous fungus Luteodiscus epibryus on Lepidozia reptans last weekend. It is a lovely species to keep an eye out for on bryophyte-covered rotting wood, especially on liverworts like Nowellia. It has an unusually wide host range, including mosses and liverworts.

Bryoscyphus dicrani on Ceratodon purpureus. It is probably not very rare, but this was the first time I saw it. Found on Christmas Day last year. Neat little thing.

Great to see a bryophilous fungus, Bryonectria cuneifera, which lives between the lamellae of leaves of the moss Polytrichum formosum. This species has evaded me for nearly 8 years so glad to finally find it.

Two moss patches with bleached areas that harbour fungal fruitbodies. Not all such patches have fungi but they are a good indication that something is not quite right with the moss.

Mniaecia jungermanniae and Lophocolea semiteres male plants spotted on my Christmas Day walk.

Fantastic to find the bryophilous fungus Octospora mnii today, a new record for the British Isles. I found an ambiguous specimen a few years ago, but this one is unmistakable. It is parasitic on the persistent protonema of the moss Rhizomnium punctatum.

Nice to see the very tiny fungus Bryonectria callicarpa today on Frullania dilatata, a species that is practically impossible to see in the field. It forms tiny orange perithecia on the undersides of host plants and causes no obvious symptoms.

The alien forests of the micro world. Amazing capture.

Cladonia sp lichen with Polytrichum sp moss. Yellowknife, NT, Canada. #lichens #fungifriends #fungi

We strongly suggest that academic publishers and other platforms that host research rapidly implement a Share to Bluesky button for their articles. Here's how: docs.bsky.app/docs/advance... #AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics

A nice sample of the rarely recorded bryophilous fungus Epibryon diaphanum (black spots) on the common moss Hypnum cupressiforme.

Preprint: Liverworts reproduce in two ways: gemmae are clones, spores are from sex. Marchantia strikes a reproductive decision depending on a conducive environment. We found a switch from vegetative to sexual reproduction that can respond to environmental cues. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sarah had a great idea to collect 4 types of seed heads from campions found on yesterday's Norfolk Flora group meeting. From the left: night flowering catchfly, hybrid white x red campion, red campion and finally white campion ( think that's correct!) @bsbibotany.bsky.social #wildflowerhour

Not fun to see my least favourite plant, ivy, overgrowing a mossy wall. Ivy is an increasing but largely unacknowledged problem, with the capacity to rapidly overgrown and outcompete diverse communities of bryophytes and lichens - on rocks, trees and the ground...

New Editorial: "Pretty privilege" rdcu.be/dR0Gh Botanically inclined scientists know about plant blindness, the common tendency to overlook flora and concentrate on fauna. But we are similarly afflicted by aesthetic opinions with serious consequences for conservation. #PlantScience

Emilie-Kate’s paper on CRISPR in Ceratodon is out! She used the endogenous APT selection system to test native Ceratodon U6 snRNA promotors, and used homology directed repair to insert GFP driven by a new Ceratodon RPS5A promotor in a new landing site onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Planted up some Marchantia polymorpha fragments from a population outside of my flat for an outreach project. Let's see if they grow!

Howdo folks - here's to great positivity and some splendid vibes all round. Aren't Robins ruddy magic?

You know what time of year it is? It's time to start watching out for devil's fingers fungus, Clathrus archeri, to come bursting out of its mucilaginous eggs. I live down the road from a large colony of it and today's my annual day to start watching out! Pictures from last year.

Good morning bsky! Here's a ghost pipe flower for you. It's a parasitic plant that takes nutrients from other plant roots via the fungal network. As such, it produces no chlorophyll. These grow in numerous big clumps in the understory of the mountain rainforest back home.

Oh hello Britain 😳 That blue line is activity in the UK spiking past all of the other countries on Bluesky right now. Welcome, and invite a friend to join us! bsky.app/download

Finally, I bit the bullet and moved over from the other place. Posting a celebratory piece of moss parasitised by the fungus Bryorella acrogena! Hoping to (re-)connect with former plant science twitter.