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INTRODUCTION 
For many years, discussions among bryologists at various meetings indicated the need for a 
compendium of well-defined bryological terms. The absence of a standardized list of terms has 
caused a great deal of misinterpretation of older as well as recent literature. Especially 
troublesome to nonprofessionals or students are different terms used for similar structures in 
mosses and liverworts. For example, the surface layer of stem tissue in mosses, epidermis, is 
traditionally called the cortex in leafy hepatics, while the inner stem tissue or cortex of mosses 
is called the medulla in hepatics. Bryological terms may also have quite different meanings in 
different languages, leading to further confusion. 
These problems prompted the International Association of Bryologists to support a request by 
a group of bryologists at the Geneva meeting, 1979, to sanction the preparation of a 
multilingual glossary of bryological terms. Over the last ten years, through the efforts of the 
original glossary committee and the collaboration of six language committees, this polyglot 
glossary has been completed. 
The glossary consists of seven separate but comparable language parts. The English version 
was compiled first and served as the model for the other language versions. Thus the other 
language versions are based on the English text. Two methods were used for translation of the 
English text. In the first method (French, German, Spanish) the committees were asked to 
provide verbatim translations of the English terms and definitions. When the committees 
found terms with a meaning or usage that differed from the English text, a note to explain the 
differences or alternate definition was added. An important feature of Glossarium Polyglottum 
Bryologiae is the cross-referencing system used to link the English glossary and each of the 
glossaries compiled by this method. Each glossary is arranged alphabetically, and their terms 
are independently numbered. This allows the glossaries to be used independently, while the 
numbers provide cross-ref: pointers between the English version and the French, 
German, and Spanish versions. The cross-reference can also be used to compare terms in any 
of the languages by using the cumulative cross-reference in the English version. The French, 
German, and Spanish glossaries are linked back to the English glossary by means of a 
number(s) in square brackets at the end of each definition. This number is the number of the 
corresponding term in the English glossary. Likewise, at the end of each English definition a 
series of numbers surrounded by Square brackets points to each of the other language 
versions. The first letter of the other language (f, g, s) precedes the number(s) of the matching 
term(s) in each glossary. 
The second compilation method (Japanese, Latin, Russian) was a translation of only the 
English terms. The compilers of the Japanese and the Russian versions list each of the English 
terms followed by the term or phrase used to express the same or a similar concept in those 
languages (see the introduction to the German version for an explanation of similar 
translations for some terms). The Russian and Latin versions start each entry with the number 
of the English term. Therefore, as with the Japanese version, the terms are arranged 
alphabetically based on the English term. 
