The bryophytes are the second largest group of land plants and are represented by three lineages: Marchantyophyta (liverworts), Anthocerotophyta (hornworts), and Bryophyta (mosses). They occupy a wide variety of habitats, from deserts to Antarctica, and exercise great ecological importance. These facts and their wide use in traditional medicine raise the question of what is known about moss chemistry. This paper gathered studies from the last 52 years about the compounds identified in mosses, aiming to address the following questions: Are mosses chemically under-studied? How many families, genera, and species of mosses have been chemically studied? Which continent and countries have been responsible for the majority of these studies? A literature search was performed in major scientific databases, using a combination of keywords. A total of 199 papers were compiled, of which 45% were published during the last decade. Only a small percentage of moss species has been studied, mostly from Europe and Asia. Dicranales and Hypnales are the most studied orders. In general, fatty acids and flavonoids are the most commonly reported classes of compounds. Biflavonoids and triflavonoids are detected mainly in derived clades of mosses, while coumarins are most reported for basal groups. Akthough only a small percentage of moss species has been chemically studied, most of these studies were published in the last decade—there has been a 135% increase in the number of reported compounds in the last 13 years. The emergence of new equipment, which can produce high-resolution spectra with small amounts of sample, combined with bioinformatics tools, has undoubtedly contributed to the increase of chemical investigation of mosses. Also, advances in the identification and phylogenetics of moss groups are contributing to a better understanding of them generally, which should lead also to increased study of moss chemistry.

A species of the genus Ramalea, R. coilophylla, was recollected at the type locality and an additional large population was found in another state, Espírito Santo, in Brazil. This enabled a morphological study showing that the podetia arise from the margins of primary squamules. Sequencing showed the species and, because it is very similar to the type species, the genus, which was lastly cited as incertae sedis, to belong to the Ramalinaceae. A new species from the Amazon was also shown to belong to the Ramalinaceae and the new genus Appressodiscus is erected to accommodate this species, as well as a species that was recently described in the genus Ramboldia. New lichen species are Appressodiscus isidiobadius and Lecania variocolorata, and Appressodiscus badius is a new combination.

To further understand calicioid communities and their habitat and substrate requirements, we conducted a study on the Colville National Forest of northeastern Washington State, U.S.A. We hypothesized that calicioid composition would vary depending on age and type of substrate, and that species diversity would be higher on older trees and in older stands, as found by previous research. To test these hypotheses, we searched for calicioids on plots established by the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. Because individual trees on FIA plots are tagged, we could relate recorded tree species and age to calicioid composition. We investigated calicioid species diversity in relation to host species; live, dead or burnt trees; and dominant forest type. Our analyses show that calicioid abundance and diversity do increase with tree age. Thuja plicata hosted the highest number of calicioid species in our study and also had the highest rate of occupancy with 70% of all investigated boles inhabited. In an analysis of the effect of forest type (series), we found the Thuja plicata series to host the highest number of species while the Pseudotsuga menziesii series had the lowest number of species. Only 3.4% of burnt trees sampled hosted calicioids while 43.6% of unburnt trees did, suggesting that fire does negatively impact calicioid communities. Three species, Chaenotheca obscura, Chaenothecopsis haematopus, and C. nigra and were found only on snags. Of the 17 species of shrubs sampled, only Alnus, Amelanchier, Salix, and Holodiscus hosted calicioid lichen or fungi. Species that have rarely been reported from Washington include Chaenothecopsis haematopus and C. ochroleuca.

The Mniaceae is one of the largest families of mosses, with more than 75 species worldwide, and is one of the most studied families with respect to chromosome numbers, pairing, structural features, and early or late disjunction. In the 1940s a pathbreaking cytotaxonomic study of haploid-diploid species pairs set the stage for further research that explored allopolyploidy, m-chromosomes, and karyology. Here we report chromosome numbers, examined in the course of our studies of allopolyploidy in several genera, for five species of Cinclidium, two of Cyrtomnium, eight of Plagiomnium, one of Pseudobryum, and eight of Rhizomnium and compare our results to earlier published reports. In contrast to most previous studies, we made multiple counts from different geographical regions within the ranges of the species. Five of our 24 counts represent firsts for these species: Cinclidium alaskanum (n = 6 + m), C. minutifolium (n = 6 + m), Plagiomnium curvatulum (n = 12), P. tezukae (n = 6) and Rhizomnium appalachianum (n = 6 + m). Because there have been major changes in the taxonomic treatment of species of Mniaceae beginning with an important revision of the family in 1968, it is critical to attach correct names to earlier reports of chromosome numbers. Moreover, a number of reports based on misidentifications have necessitated reexamination of the original specimens. Finally, we attempt to relate our observations of chromosome karyotypes to recent discoveries based on whole genome sequencing of selected moss species and point out why such studies of the Mniaceae may prove particularly insightful.