Moss Class (from February 7th)

Here is a make-up post. I took a Moss Class on Thursday, February 7th. I was exposed to a lot of new material with which I was not familiar. The woman next to me talked me through the different parts and talked to me like she was a high school Biology teacher (which she was).

The other woman sitting next to me  is a friend and we laughed at both having signed up for a 10am class... that is for the retired or fun-employed! Actually, we both have jobs... for the same non-profit in town; I work with the boys while she works with the girls and we actually worked together last fall at an after-school program too. Small world, huh? (This is a perfect realization for someone studying bryophytes and lichens.)

A crucial part of the day was buying a hand-lens with a built-in light... super helpful for studying mosses and lichens! I'm so glad I paid the extra $2! This was a good introduction into a world of Ecology about which I knew nothing. I still have a LONG way to go, but I feel good learning the basics and have two more weeks to learn. I will miss the field trip, but look forward to another chance to get outside with the instructor.

Deer walking with Nick

Instead of going to my spot like normal, Nick and I went into the woods for a walk. We had no expectations, but let our curiosity guide the way. I had the hankering to look at mosses and lichens while he was exploring plants. We found our respective tasks challenging and we certainly learned a lot through the struggles of "unclarity." I do think we found and properly identified the Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens) [p176] along the edge of the trail. The three leaflets were lobed and toothed, as described in Pojar and MacKinnon's  Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Suddenly a game trail appeared and we felt the urge to follow it. Nick first wanted to look at a Bigleaf Maple (Acer Macrophyllum) while I went to the ground to sift through the mossy base of a Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera). And after an interlude of tasting and subsequently identifying and a not-so-licorice-tasting Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) rhizome, we embraced the Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus colombianus) which we assume made the path.

Sure enough... deer sign on the ground in the form of a pile of "Raisinettes!" And then another and another as we tracked its path for about a quarter mile. Though we may have strayed from the exact steps, hand it to us to look like deer and think like deer:
What is the path of least resistance? Where is a good place to take a break under shelter? What is there to eat right here? Where is the potable water?
We tracked it around a small patch of forest littered with tightly knit groves of Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) and tons of mosses. We explored the medicinal uses of Devil's Club (Oplopanax horridus) while observing its new buds just breaking the surface of the branches.

Nick analyzed an approach of how one might climb a particularly huge Bigleaf Maple while i got back into the tiny moss forest world. In the end, I saw more capsules, operculum and peristomes... correctly noticing subtle differences between species. I made a go at trying to identify one and think I got it right: Fan Moss or Large Leafy Moss (Rhizomnium glabrescens).

Then we headed home because I was getting cold and we were both a little hungry. We tracked out using a path we found and picked up a lot of OLD trash along the way... One Mountain Dew can must have been sitting there since the 80's; it had logos I've never seen. We filled up a paint container (that we found in a clearing) with debris and brought it to the trailhead.

We decided to leave it there, perhaps as a small trash recepticle for others who might want to contribute to cleaning up our forest... In fact, we left it right next to the crap that some "Hippier-than-thou" Bellinghamster "didn't see" while s/he was riding a bike as his/her righteous dog deposited it so neatly. Yes, I have coined this phrase and will accordingly pursue putting the phrase onto bumper stickers.

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!