Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Mossery

IMG_4845Like miniature tropical wildernesses, clumps of moss on the forest floor glow with a green that is only also seen in conifers by late November.IMG_4842What are mosses? I had to look this up: they are non-vascular flowerless plants. In the picture above, the reddish stalk-like structures are sporophytes, the out-of-focus little clumps at the top of theses sporophytes are packets of spores.IMG_4860Mosses like shade and damp places. They can absorb up to 20 times their weight in water. (Moss sperm swims to fertilize).IMG_4866

IMG_4848Note that this is not a moss; it’s a clubmoss or Lycopodium. More on these here.

mthew

One response to “Mossery”

  1. Ellen

    This post is great and well-timed as it ties into the book I am reading. In The Signature of All Things the main character decides to study moss as no botanists were interested in it at the time. A fascinating miniature world. Makes me want to go out and look at mosses. Thanks.

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