Mosses

So, last week I took a class on Mosses and Bryophytes. I bought a hand-lens with a built-in light... it's really cool... and helpful! More on that class in another post.

Though I am a novice on mosses, I decided to look at them anyways while at my sit spot. I ended up looking at what I have determined to be Feather Moss (Hylocomium splendens) though I am definitely not sure! In the process of looking at the moss, I found four different lichens too (plural is lichens, not lichen).

We are going to discuss lichens in class on Thursday, but for now it was fun to look at them with a lens and see how extraordinarily different they are. Perhaps two of them were the same, one of them bigger and in a much later state of decomposition. Perhaps not.

That led to concentrated observations and I should probably draw them. But for now I will just let it be as a fun chance to look. I'll get in there with a pencil and paper another time... I have much more observing to do before I can draw them.

I was about to get up and my friend the Wren came back. it fluttered about as usual, about ten feet at the closest point and it seemed to be picking at sticks and logs. I wonder if it is eating and if so what it is eating. Bugs on the lichens? on the mosses?

I forgot to mention the tiny brown spider I saw too. While moss hunting, I saw this spider appear and then burrow itself into the leaf litter. I tried to flash my light on it (it was getting dark around 4:30 pm when I was out there!) in order to get some observations. It was not a brown recluse nor a black widow. that much is for certain. it had really pretty wavy lines, zebra-esque in two shades of brown on its thorax. Then it burrowed in again and I left it alone.

Almost didn't go outside today for my spot. I am so happy that I did. The process put me in a better mood and let me play for a little bit too.

Oh, and another living thing. A small mushroom had broken through a dead leaf and was beginning its growth upward. I found it really cool to see that the mushroom had decisively punctured through a leaf. I still don't like mushrooms, but they get cooler as I look at them. This one, under the hand-lens, was very fibery and stringy. A beige-ish conglomeration of woven threads that had somehow taken the shape of a mushroom.

On my walk out I came across more moss. I got whipped in the face by a devil's club branch but held fast to my space at the base of a huge big leaf maple. There, two, maybe three VERY distinct species were growing in and around each other.

I studied some gametophytes (female ones were the only ones I remembered!) and the sporophytes too. I forgot the name of all these terms and am referring to my notes in hindsight, but I  DID remember to look at the seta and the capsules on the sporophytes too! Those are distinguishing characteristics for mosses, especially comparatively. Some were purple, others more green.

And it was cool to compare the same species of moss- one of the sporophytes' capsules had the operculum attached and the other one didn't. (An operculum is the little cap on the end of the seta.) I got to observe an operculum and see how it is designed. And directly next to it, I saw a capsule without the operculum and thus I saw the peristome, which are wavy finger-like structures that release germinating spores into the world...

I think I am saying all of this right. Boy, I am thankful for this blog. I would have forgotten the subtle details of my sit spot today (and the associated transportation too) had I not a chance to report my observations. This is a good habit for me indeed. And I got to learn a bunch about mosses as I look over my notes from last week!