The Cumbria Lichen and Bryophyte group is a self-study group for everyone interested in learning, recording, conserving or simply enjoying Cumbria’s lichens and bryophytes (regardless of experience) .
Please join us on a field trip and share your experiences with us on the Cumbria Lichens and Cumbria Bryophytes Facebook groups.
Platyhypnidium riparioides capsule – Clare Shaw 
Physconia distorta, Aira Force – Chris Cant 
Sphagnum palustre and fallax – Clare Shaw 
Bartramia pomiformis – Clare Shaw 
Bunodophoron melanocarpum, Naddle – Chris Cant 
Oak pasture, Birkrigg fell, Newlands valley – Chris Cant
Here are our most recent blog posts:
- Little Dun Fell, June 2021
Continuing my theme of upland lichens, Caz Walker and I visited Little Dun Fell in the Pennines on 7/6/21 hoping to acquaint ourselves with the arctic-alpine species that have been found there, as well as to see how they are doing. We approached from a friends’ house in Eden valley fellside, so quite a trek […] - Smardale Trip report 25/5/21
Well, it was great to meet up again for real, rather than over a screen! Even though the weather forecast deteriorated over the preceding days, sixteen of us met in the new car park at Smardale. We wished each other “Happy New Year’s” in the flesh. Eventually approximately 100 lichen species and 62 bryophyte species […] - A Cryptogam Flora of the Coniston Limestone
For the last decade, Allan Pentecost been surveying the cryptogam flora (lichens, bryophytes, ferns) of the Coniston Limestone (now Dent Group) in the English Lake District. This is a narrow belt of limestone that divides the volcanic rocks of the high Lakeland fells from the softer Silurian rocks to the south. Allan’s paper has just […] - Bryum in Cumbria
Open-ground walks, and what you might see by way of mosses: in praise of a group of mosses which colonise bare soil, called “Bryums”. Their genus name, Bryum, literally means moss….. from Latin bryon (“moss”), from Ancient Greek βρύον (brúon, “tree-moss, oyster-green”), from βρύω (brúō, “be full to bursting, abound”). Many people enjoy walking: on […] - On the Blood spot trail…
Many of the lichens you see up on the fells are hard to tell apart. But one that is easy to identify is Ophoparma ventosa, the blood spot lichen. Once you’ve seen it, you’ll remember it. And you might not even need a hand lens! It’s a crusty, cracked and rough (sometimes warty) splodge on […]