University of California, RIverside is accepting specimens. If you need help identifying a species or just want to contribute contact Chris Wagner at UCR herbarium or contact me here. Please ensure you abide by all collection policies set out for agencies and private land owners!

If you are interested in participating in local bryophyte and lichen forays or want to be notified of workshops, classes and presentations contact 'Mossgeek' (Chris Wagner) to be added to the email list.

A Non-vascular group has formed in the Riverside to Temecula area. Covid has put it on hold but if your interested in joining, we have complete use of a biology lab for identification and will be doing hikes.

I have several Lectures available if anyone is interested, just contact me.

Contact Chris Wagner mossgeek@yahoo.com or here on INaturalist.

If you or anyone you know is interested in giving a talk even if it i was "non vascular species documented within an area" which would be full of photos.. We are interested! Please contact me to schedule. No gathering because of covid 19 so lets share with online presentations, learn from each other and share!

The newly formed group Lichens and Bryophytes has been on hold since the Covid outbreak. I am considering having online 'ZOOM' or 'TEAMS" presentations on lichens and bryophytes. If you live in Southern California or contribute to INaturalist observation while visiting and want to learn anyway, please take this simple survey. (its only 10 questions but i may add more if I think I need any)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NZDVK2M

And then message me with your name and email so when this is up and going, we can contact you to join the presentations. ~Chris Wagner

We are skipping the month of April do to the Covid outbreak. We hope to resume back in May but we will see..

We are a Non-Vascular group. Our monthly bryophyte group in Menifee at the San Jacinto Collage biology lab. This is free and open to all beginner to advanced. Lab has microscopes and tools available for bryophyte identification. Every first friday of every month.

May 1st, Next meeting will have a presentation on moss anatomy which will help in your ability to identify moss to species. We will then get into keying these mosses. After this we will then focus on the liverworts and hornworts. At this meeting we will discuss plans for group hikes where we can identify species and collect in order to identify to species.

Everyone in the group also discussed working on lichens as well. so we are opening this group up to "bryophytes and lichens" but beginning with the study of bryophytes.

We will attempt education speakers and help to id available. If your Interested in more information or would like to sign up contact me at Chris Wagner, mossgeek@yahoo.com or here on INaturalist (mossgeek).

Feb 2020
We have started a monthly bryophyte group in Menifee at the San Jacinto Collage biology lab. This is free and open to all beginner to advanced. Lab has microscopes and tools available for bryophyte identification. Every first friday of every month.

March 6th, Next meeting will have an 'Introduction to Bryophytes presentation' which will include the most common mosses of Southern California. We will then get into keying these mosses.

Everyone in the group also discussed working on lichens as well. so we are opening this group up to "bryophytes and lichens" but beginning with the study of bryophytes.

We will attempt education speakers and help to id available. If your Interested in more information or would like to sign up contact me at Chris Wagner, mossgeek@yahoo.com or here on INaturalist (mossgeek).

Field suggestions;
-keep a small spray bottle to hydrate lichens. I always take pics of dry and hydrated when i can.

-Note the habitat. Some lichens are limited to rock/boulders while others are limited to tree trunks and branches. some lichens do not care about substrate. Habitat and substrate also helps to identify to species.

-If there are several species, focus pictures on one species at a time. This way when identifying it we can identify one species within the photos.

A great word of advice i got from my bryologist and lichenologist mentors is to put an identification to it even if you dont know it is correct. This way you are paying more attention to the characteristics and when you do get the correction and correct, you will remember these characteristics. Putting a close name is better then no name, or at least to genus and or family.