The return of the delicate flapwort | @GrrlScientist

This is the story of how our hero, Richard Carter, joined forces with a local botanist to hunt down the elusive, rare and very tiny delicate flapwort!Several months ago, I reviewed a book about England's Rare Mosses and Liverworts. Shortly afterwards, I packed it up and mailed it to my longtime friend, Richard Carter, so he could field test it and maybe share his impressions of the book with us. What transpired was a dedicated search for a plant that is so tiny that it looks more like a green smudge on the ground – if anyone spots it at all (which almost no one ever has). But this update to the tale is so much more than a renewed search for a tiny and seemingly inconsequential plant. It's also a story of old and new; of new friendships forged between two people who never knew of the other's existence despite living for years at opposite ends of the same road. It also describes a meeting between old and new technologies, all folded into a quest to retrace historical discoveries. The result that the hero of this story gains a new and deeper appreciation for an ancient place, with the added bonus that he lives to tell us about it. The return of the delicate flapwortI love the internet. A couple of months ago, I wrote about my clueless, fruitless search for an elusive plant, the delicate flapwort (Solenostoma caespiticium), in Blake Dean, a local beauty spot in West Yorkshire. The plant, which is a species of liverwort, was last seen in Blake Dean in 1978 by the bryologist TL B...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: theguardian.com Blogposts Biology Yorkshire Fungi Plants Beauty Natural England The National Trust Science Source Type: news