Babcock mosses

Yesterday, my mea culpa admission was that I hadn't yet learned to identify lichens. Today, on a wettish-day walk to Babcock, the admission entails a plant group often found with lichens—this would be the mosses. I don't really have an excuse for this sub-species of natural history ignorance, since earlier in the year, not only did the Princeton University Press provide a review copy of an excellent field guide—Common Mosses of the Northeast and the Appalachians—but I actually interviewed, at great length, one of the authors, a St. Lawrence University biologist named Karl McKnight. So I'm just going to have to spend a little less time with those things with wings, and more time on bryology. Mosses are certainly photogenic, and if, even with the new guide, they're a challenge to ID, well, rumor has it that I love a challenge. This one, as near as I can determine, belongs in the genus Thuidium, the "fern mosses." For confirmation, I may have to start bugging Dr. McKnight.