Intensive fieldwork by bryologists David Holyoak and Nick Hodgetts over the past few years has yielded a host of new mosses and liverworts for Ireland. In 2005, David Holyoak described a new species of moss collected at Lough Oughter in Co. Cavan – Ephemerum hibernicum – however, its status as an Irish endemic was short lived after it was discovered in Wales and Spain shortly thereafter.
National Parks and Wildlife service has contracted these two botanists to conduct rare bryophyte surveys in Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Offaly, Roscommon and Tipperary. This year they will be surveying Cork and Kerry.
David Long of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, has also made many valuable contributions while on holidays in the west of Ireland.
