Trip report by Nina Shoroplova

Connor Wardrop, a bryologist and Ph.D. candidate at UBC, led twelve of us on a “Meet the Mosses” walk in Stanley Park on March 28, 2026. We met at North Lagoon Drive and set off on Cathedral Trail, where there are plenty of bryophytes (that is, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts).

Bryophytes are nonvascular land plants (though for some groups, nonvascular is a bit of a misnomer!); they are very different from other land plants! Bryophytes, mostly, have limited internal channels through which to efficiently transport liquids (hence nonvascular), and their leaves are typically just one cell layer thick! They have no roots, live on surfaces, and rely on moisture and nutrients in the air. When this moisture is lacking, they dehydrate to crisp versions of themselves and remain dormant, waiting until they become moist once more.

The life cycle of all land plants alternates between gametophyte (gamete-producing) and sporophyte (spore-producing) stages. In seed plants (conifers, ginkgoes, and flowering plants), the gametophytes are microscopic and composed of only a few cells: the pollen grains and the embryo sacs held within cones or flowers. In bryophytes, the gametophyte is the long-lived, dominant stage that nutritionally supports the sporophyte. In bryophytes, these same life stages are the leafy plants we know and love, and the sporophyte stage is a little lollypop-esque structure that sometimes shows up on the mossy plants after fertilization. 

Of all Canada’s provinces, British Columbia, by far, holds the greatest diversity of bryophyte species, roughly 1,200! We saw over 20 species in just a short walk!

Here is Connor.

And here is an image of the sort of terrain boasting bryophytes; in fact, it has ferns, vascular plants, and bryophytes.

Here we are meeting the mosses.

Here is a clump of common pellia, Pellia neesiana, a species of thallose liverwort, where “thallose” means that the plant body does not differentiate into a distinct stem and leaves. Similarly, as with all bryophytes,  these plants do not have roots. Instead, they grow sticky, one-cell-thick filamentous rhizoids, hair-like structures that help them to anchor to their substrates.

Here is a clump of great scented liverwort, Conocephalum sp. Each of its air chambers is visible to the naked eye, making the liverwort look like the skin of a snake, and indeed it is also known as snakeskin liverwort.

Here is some feather moss, Hylocomium splendens, easy to recognize by its large shoots and stair-step growth pattern.

And around the bottom of these small tree trunks is a moss known as Isothecium stoloniferum.

Connor’s enthusiasm, knowledge, and his ease with the language of this challenging subject made this walk especially memorable. Thanks, Connor.