Back to Nature with a New Guide Book

 

Due to a back injury, I've only been an armchair naturalist of late,

spending more time at my sewing machine than out of doors.

 

But I am very excited to have received a new guidebook to check out

from Jessica at Princeton University Press,

one that's been long overdue,

much anticipated by my fellow general nature nerds

and released today.

 

 

Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians

by Karl B. McKnight, Joseph R. Rohrer, Kirsten McKnight Ward

and Warren J. Perdrizet

 

When I first became interested in learning more about nature,

my little sister, my mentor, The Fern Lady, gave me a hand lens.

It's a little bitty magnifying glass, maybe an inch in diameter,

 that you hold up to your eye

and get very close and personal to the subject you are studying.

To be perfectly honest, you look like a dork when you're using it.

 

She said if I don't use it, she wants it back.

 

Needless to say, I never returned it. 

 

That hand lens opened up a whole new world to me,

enabling me to discover that,

what appears to the naked eye to be plain,

is actually quite detailed.

That what we often overlook,

holds a beauty all of it's own.

 

And this is so very true of mosses.

Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians

is the first field guide of it's kind.

To begin with, it's tote-able, can be used

in the field to make accurate identifications.

 

The 400 pictures are clear,

the 600 diagrams large and concise, "highlighting

essential characteristics" that can often only be determined

with the hand lens.

 

Each and every section of this guide book is well written,

so that even an amateur like myself can understand it.

 

Maybe now I'll be able to identify

and label pictures I've taken,

like this one.

 

 

Green is my favorite color.

I love moss.