Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 8:59:50 +0100
From: ron.porley@english-nature.org.uk
To: bryonet-l@mtu.edu, moptjjkr@stud.man.ac.uk
BRYONET
Dear Jenny
This is what I like to hear - people interested in the culture of bryophytes!
Many people, as you will have gathered, have dabbled in this with varying
degrees of success. In the UK the late Harold Whitehouse of Cambridge done much
in this area, using axenic cultures on agar slopes. He was able to keep
bryophytes alive for years, but they were slow growing and difficult to bulk up.
Then there is Michael Fletcher of Reading who has grown bryophytes in a
glasshouse and amassed so much experience and published a booklet all about
growing mosses. Jeff Duckett of Queen Mary College is one of our best exponents
in culturing mosses today, and has recently prepared a paper on the subject for
publication in proceedings of a workshop we held on the ex situ conservation of
bryophytes in Feb 1999. If you ask him he may let you see it.
Current interest is that we (English Nature) and the other statutory
conservation agencies in Britain have a contarct with Kew for them to study all
the different ways to culture bryophytes and set up what is in effect a
'bryophyte bank' of threatened bryophytes at Kew - a world first!
Jane Burch is the one at Kew who will be doing the work, and she has already
contacted you. I encourage you to liaise with her, as I'm sure she can tell you
all you need to know. But if you want to ask me anything do get in contact.
Regards
Ron Porley
EN Bryologist
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