Nick Hodgetts Botanical Services
Botanical consultancy - bryophytes a speciality
While I have a passion for all of nature, my chief enthusiasm is bryophytes. Ever since first looking at a moss during my Botany degree course in about 1980, I have been hooked on these beautiful little plants, and now I am fortunate enough to make much of my living from them. I have been a member of the British Bryological Society since 1984, was the Society's President 2016-17 and am one of the scientific editors of the Journal of Bryology. I am also a referee for a number of groups of moss and liverwort. Living on the beautiful Isle of Skye is a gift to a bryologist, and I am currently working on a tetrad flora of the island. I like nothing better than to be in a mossy ravine or on a liverwort-rich crag pottering around to see what I can find!
Mosses have taken me further afield too, with expeditions to Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, South Africa and Lesotho, and conferences/field trips to places as diverse as Switzerland, Norway, Hungary, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Madeira and Mexico.
I have discovered or described a number of species new to science, including Thamnobryum cataractarum in the UK and several liverworts in Africa. I have also found two bryophytes new to the British Isles (Schistidium flexipile and S. maritimum subsp. piliferum) and several new to Ireland.