With all our efforts for genetic research do we care for what the general public would like to learn about our non vascular embryonic cryptogams? If we stay in our ivory towers we may ultimate loose all public support and cryptogam studies might wither away as fast as the habitats we like to see preserved. Our efforts in research, teaching and public education are in need of rethinking. People walking in the rich forests of the Appalachian mountains or somewhere in the Rockies or the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest and naively looking for some users friendly books on our beloved cryptogams will be disappointed. In Great Britain, the Mid European region and Japan, good non-vascular cryptogam floras, pocket editions of floras are now available, but not in the Malesian area between China and Australia. Rudi Schuster once said, for Eastern North America, "we need an integrated survey of the field of Hepaticology". After he finished his monumental work forty years later who can afford to buy his flora? What we should do is to make the Federal agencies dealing with National parks, National Forests and Wild life areas more aware of this. Bold plans for the speedy production of concise user friendly guides are needed. Microscopes should be considered as much needed as Computers at Field research stations and at local magnet schools surrounded by Natural Areas. Young people should be introduced to the life of non vascular cryptogamic plants at their high schools if not earlier. The production of local florulas should be sponsored as much as possible. Emphasis should be put in the first place on distinction of genera, the study of living plants and their ecology. For several reasons this is much more needed for liverworts than mosses.

Key words: bryophytes, field guides, global biodiversity, hornworts, lichens, mosses