Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland

The second edition of the Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland (LGBI2) was published by the British Lichen Society in 2009, and has been the primary reference for identification of British lichens for well over ten years now. Since then there have been substantial advances in our knowledge of their systematics and distribution. The British Lichen Society therefore resolved to work towards a new edition of this work (given the acronym LGBI3). An Editorial Board oversees this task, currently composed of Paul Cannon, André Aptroot, Brian Coppins, Alan Fryday, Neil Sanderson, Janet Simkin and Rebecca Yahr.

The new project is a major undertaking, and the Editorial Board hopes that as with the second edition, a broad range of lichenologists will contribute. This might include updating treatments in LGBI2 by the same authors, revisions of those chapters by others, or completely new accounts where major changes have taken place. A warm invitation is extended to anyone who may be interested in participating as authors or revisers in this project – in the first instance please contact Paul Cannon (pertusaria@gmail.com) who has  agreed to oversee the project administration.

The work involved in generating a complete new edition is considerable, and research into recognition and classification of lichens in our region is a continuing process. The inevitable delays involved in completing and publishing a book that will probably be longer than the 1046 pages of the second edition means that much of it will be noticeably out-of-date on the day of issue. The Editorial Board has therefore resolved to issue accounts on a family by family basis as an ongoing series of free-to-access pdf publications. These will be incorporated into traditional book format at intervals, but will remain accessible as independent documents. New findings will be included in further revisions of the family accounts, which will be issued as new documents with new numbers.

As they are published, sections of the Revisions of British and Irish Lichens will be available to download below (click on the volume number). A table charting progress can be accessed here.

The keys to genera will be one of the last major tasks, to ensure that they recognize all of the changes in the Revisions series. As an interim measure, a pdf of the keys from LGBI2 (Smith et al. 2009) can be downloaded from here. PLEASE NOTE that these are now seriously out of date, and you are recommended to consult the family keys in the relevant Revisions volume once you have a provisional result from the LGBI2 key. Also, please do not cite this document as an independent publication, refer rather to the 2009 paper edition. It remains copyright of the British Lichen Society.

Glossary

As part of this project we are also producing a more comprehensive and revised Glossary of terms, and all authors are encouraged to use these terms in a consistent manner. The draft Glossary and Notes to Authors can be downloaded below. Comments and suggestions for the Glossary will be very welcome.