At present, there is insufficient information, both in terms of inventory and degree of threat, to assign a statewide status (e.g., Endangered) to most of the mosses, as has been done with vascular plants. Unless noted, these mosses have a state status of Review Group 1 (R1, of potential concern but needs more field work to assign another rank). For those few species that have been assigned a state status, it is included below following the scientific name. The codes include E for Endangered (in danger of becoming extinct or extirpated from Washington) and T for Threatened (likely to become Endangered in Washington). They may also be found in our refined list, the List of Plants Tracked by the Washington Natural Heritage Program. Clicking on a scientific name that is underlined will take you to the field guide page (pdf format, average size 300 kb) for that taxon.

This list of mosses was originally developed in 1996 by Judy Harpel from a review of the literature and of specimens in the following herbaria: University of Washington, Western Washington University, Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, Central Washington University and the University of British Columbia. Information was also gathered from the following personal collections: Fred Rhodes (Olympic Mountains), John Davis (Columbia River Gorge) and Judy Harpel (statewide). Finally, long discussions with both Wilf Schofield and John Christy were very valuable in "fine tuning" this list. It should be understood that this is a working list and that new information may result in the removal or addition of species to the list.

Nomenclature follows that of the following two references:

Anderson, L.E., H.A. Crum and W.R. Buck. 1990. List of the Mosses of North America North of Mexico. The Bryologist 93:448-499.

Anderson, L.E. 1990. A checklist of sphagnum in North America North of Mexico. The Bryologist 93:500-501.

A key to rank fields appears below.