William Russel Buck

Although mosses are often overlooked, or if seen, assumed to have little diversity, they are in fact a large and fascinating group of plants. I am primarily interested in the phylogeny, systematics and floristics of pleurocarpous mosses, those that are mat-forming and produce their capsules laterally along the stems. Although I am most interested in familial and ordinal relationships and inclusions, it is impossible to understand higher categories without first knowing species. To gain this basic knowledge I am involved in floristic studies of the West Indies and Paraguay. In order to see living mosses in the field, and therefore better understand their relationships, I have travelled extensively in the neotropics, from Cuba and Puerto Rico through Ecuador and Venezuela south to Paraguay and southernmost Brazil. For similar purposes I have collected in southern Africa, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. To date my floristic work in the West Indies, with the final goal of producing a moss flora of the region, has taken me to all of the islands of the Greater Antilles. I anticipate field work in the Lesser Antilles in the upcoming years. My flora not only reflects the species composition of the area but provides a new approach to systematic and geographical relationships. Email Address: bbuck@nybg.org

Selected Publications