Durham Grown: The Durham County Library Garden Club

The Wondrous World of Moss!

Home to multiple species of microscopic life...

A keystone species holding moisture, retaining soil, pioneering environments and an ecosystem health monitor...

The ancient plants making way for all other terrestrial plant life forms on Earth...

Soft and serene, moss humbly dominates our environment but is often overlooked for the flashier vascular plants. Delicate and yet thriving in some of the harshest environments in the world. Simple in form yet supporting all organisms in complex ecosystems. Moss roots us to nature while remaining unrooted itself!

Discover the wondrous world of mosses with Blanka Aguero, the Bryophyte Collections Manager at the Duke University Herbarium!

Blanka Aguero is a bryologist and bryophyte collections manager at the Duke University Herbarium. She is co-author of the Bryophytes of North Carolina website. She received a broad training in cryptogamic botany (the field traditionally including systematics and ecology of algae, fungi, bryophytes, and lichens) at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. She has had the privilege of collecting bryophytes on most continents, and places with the highest rainfall on Earth are her favorite. She has been looking for mosses and liverworts in North Carolina for 20 years. She collaborates with Jon Shaw (Duke University) on research involving speciation and phylogeography of peatmosses (Sphagnum). She has also been part of the team reconstructing the liverwort tree of life.

Blanka is interested in ways to share the biodiversity information with the public and with other researchers. She is leading databasing efforts at the Duke bryophyte collection and contributing biodiversity data and photographs to the bryophyte portal of the Consortium of Bryophyte herbaria.

Registration is appreciated.

Parking is available in the library lot or at the North Queen Street Garage which is locate at 115 North Queen Street which is located directly across the street from the library. Parking is free in the garage. Bring your parking ticket to a library service point for validation.