Neat Feather-moss

Another moss, this time collected on our Boxing Day walk across the Downs from Firle Beacon and back along the old coach road for a warming pint of Harveys in the Ram's snug. It is Neat Feather-moss, Pseudoscleropodium purum, and this is a terrible photo of one of the branches of it taken through the stereomicroscope. Through the hand lens it appears to have succulent overlapping leaves that completely obscure the stem, each with a small recurved mucronate point.
It is common throughout the British Isles.

Creeping Feather-moss

Photo: Bob Osborn (via Flickr)

The problem with mosses is that it's very difficult to show them well in photographs. I was going to take a photo through the microscope but it didn't come out well and wouldn't be that instructive. This is a moss collected growing on the site of a WWI sea-plane hangar at Newhaven. (Well it's not the actual moss but the same species.) This time keying it out was a bit simpler - Creeping Feather-moss, Amblystegium serpens. It's very common and usually found on living or dead wood, but also on soil and stones, the bases of walls and tarmac.

Pointed Spear-moss

Ciarán Byrne @kiwibyrne  

This grows (abundantly) in my lawn and I've tried a couple of times before to identify it. The last time was probably February, which was probably the last time I'd got the moss book out. It was a eureka moment to finally pin it down but not before I'd arsed about in the acrocarp keys: what an idiot! It's a pleurocarp of course. That's what happens when you don't know what you're doing and you don't start at the beginning.
Anyway, having dissected it under the stereomicroscope and looked at the cellular structure of the leaf under the compound microscope, I could have identified it without either if I'd just followed the key.
It is Pointed Spear-moss, Calliergonella cuspidata. I've nicked the photo from Ciaran Byrne's twitter feed. Ciaran is an amazing ecologist and prolific tweeter. I would urge anyone with Twitter access to follow him.

Redshank (moss)

This little bryophyte was growing in one of our plant pots and I felt I should make an effort to identify it so we could enjoy a new taxon that, like lichens, is commonly overlooked.
I've tried identifying mosses before and not found it easy, even with the British Bryological Society's great field guide. After a good half an hour perusing the keys, I have decided that this is redshank or Ceratodon purpureus. This is one of the commonest mosses in the UK according to the book, which I found reassuring. It should not be confused with the wader of the same name.
The thing about moss identification is being able to see the leaves clearly. Given that they're often only a millimetre long this can be challenging. I recently purchased a x20 hand lens to supplement my standard x10 one and found it much better for seeing the necessary detail.
Unlike lichens, it appears that most mosses have been given a common name. Why not lichens?