Get Into Moss

Learn more about Bryophytes, the first plants! I try to use my own photos and haven’t identified them (need a sample and lots of lab work!) but if I have IDd it I’ll put the name in. I work curating mosses for an herbarium (archive for plants).

[mossinformed]

Are you a fan of moss? Want to find out what Bryophytes even are? Well, here’s a link to 5 books published by the author for free, no paywall and no sign-up necessary! You can even view in the browser. And there’s cute pics :-o

Bryophyte Ecology ebook | Michigan Technological University Research | Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech

“Bryophyte Ecology is an ebook comprised of 5 volumes written by Janice Glime, Professor Emerita of Biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University. Chapter coauthors include Irene Bisang, S. Robbert Gradstein, J. Lissner, W. J. Boelema, and D. H. Wagner. If you are a returning visitor, be sure to refresh your browser in case there have been recent updates.”

Want to curl up in the moss and never come out? Garden your own, make art, close a wound, or make human proteins by genetically engineering moss?

Why are bog bodies preserved so well? Sphagnum occupies 1/3 of the land on our planet, where can you see some? Mosses can be dead and alive (and another secret third thing).

What are mosses, why are they so much weirder than you thought?

Mosses, fish, frogs, slugs (and more!) and a checklist of bryophyte-dwelling salamanders just in case.

What you can do for mosses, how to curate your own archive, collect, identify and donate them to an herbarium so mosses can be protected! Seriously, you can’t get more mosscore than that.

Once I ID the specimen in this photo I’ll add the name : )

[drhoz]

Moss Leaf / Hypnum cupressiforme - 1000x microscope

[mossinformed]

I love being a botanist bc I will go to a place, start a conversation with an employee like “I have a really weird question for you”

And then walk out of there 5 min later with moss in a Tupperware

[mossinformed]

Here she is folks! A beautiful yellow-green pleurocarpous moss, which means it tends to be creeping rather than being straight upright and it has its sporophyte coming from a sideways bud on a branch rather than at the top of a branch.

That’s usually one of the the first characteristics they have you look for in a key to identify.

[mossinformed]

Finished this one finally! Isopterygiopsis pulchella also known as Neat Silkmoss

It’s a cosmopolitan species so it could have come with the plants in the greenhouse or from the outside.

[drhoz]

#3534 - Phaeoceros sp. - Hornwort

'Yellow-horn'.

Hornworts are a Division of non-vascular land plants with an elongated horn-like diploid sporophyte at some points of the year, and a flattened green gametophyte stage that only contains one copy of the genome. Liverworts and mosses are similarly dominated by the gametophyte stage. Spores in this genus are yellow - hence the name.

Hornworts may be found worldwide, usually in damp or humid areas. Some are weedy in gardens and fields, and large tropical and sub-tropical species of Dendroceros may grow as epiphytes. Uniquely among land plants, some hornworts have an organelle and biochemistry that can concentrate CO2 to over 50 times atmospheric levels. Many have slime-filled cavities that are colonised by nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria like Nostoc.

The total number of species is uncertain - more than 300 names have been published, but the number of actually valid taxa may be a third of that.

Julimar State Forest, WA.

[zedogica]

ok. i survived 25 years outside the international space station. who gives a shit

[biglawbear]

Technically most moss is outside the international space station

[davvvd]

[mossinformed]

Tragically common occurrence for me 😩

Usually this “fake moss” you see above is actually lichen in the Cladonia genus. A cursory google search may say that this is once of the most common lichen (which is technically true), HOWEVER none of these can be farmed or cultivated, and they are rapidly disappearing across ecosystems. All these lichens are harvested from the wild in an entirely unregulated way. Lichens also grow very very slowly, many less than one millimeter per year if at all!! That’s like cutting down an old growth tree to put on an art project, a choice that people have the right to know that they are making, but it is definitely not something people selling these products disclose.

Here you can find a paper with more background info! Please consider avoiding crafting with these organisms 💚 more info and a paper under the cut

A few months ago a colleague alerted me to MossTiles, which can be attached to walls to create interior vertical gardens. They look really c

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mosses/comments/ix2rg0/save_the_moss/#:~:text=Moss%20Poaching%20Impact:%20Most%20moss%20sold%20commercially,which%20is%20unsustainable%20and%20severely%20damages%20ecosystems.

Reddit - The heart of the internet

Dalip K. Upreti, Pradeep K. Divakar, Sanjeeva Nayaka "Commercial and Ethnic Use of Lichens in India," Economic Botany, 59(3), 269-273, (1 June 2005)

https://bioone.org/journals/economic-botany/volume-59/issue-3/0013-0001_2005_059_0269_CAEUOL_2.0.CO_2/Commercial-and-Ethnic-Use-of-Lichens-in-India/10.1663/0013-0001(2005)059[0269:CAEUOL]2.0.CO;2.short

[humanbyweight]

It's moss season. :3

[mossinformed]

[dogpuppy]

[woodventure]

[mossinformed]

Moss and Cladonia lichen species can often be found together!

[morg-lefay]

Fairy rings in moss, Iceland

[wild-e-eep]

Hart's tongue thyme moss - Plagoimnium undulatum.

[going-insane-cryptid-style]

Verry cool moss/lichen? I found

[mossinformed]

This is Lichen! It’s a species in Cladonia. You can’t really distinguish between species in there without doing some pretty significant chemistry. I mildly poisoned myself doing this a few weeks ago : ) (but this is probably one of the fairy cup groups). Cladonia also love to grow in/around moss so you’ll often see them together.

[melangle]

[mossinformed]

One of my students (13 y/o) unprompted came up to me and asked if I could bring my microscope to school so she could identify some moss! And she identified her first moss!!

it’s Bryum argentum!! everybody clap and cheer

I still want to x2 check some microscopic features (we used a stereo microscope) but she’s looking pretty good!!

[siberiantrap]

the bog gave me a vision

[kay-outside]

PEAT MOSS. BOGS. I LOVE THEM. They have the best tiny plants. They have a great aesthetic. They are pillowy soft. They store water. They filter water. One gram of moss can be home to millions of cool microorganisms. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE

[schistostegapennata]

can you talk about moss poaching i'm actually really curious

How can I refuse! Absolutely!!! It sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's actually very sad.

So, let's start off with some numbers. Every year, the moss black market is estimated to garner up to $165 million for trafficking approximately 82 million pounds of moss.

I cannot even wrap my mind around how much moss that is.

You might ask, why does moss poaching exist and why is it so lucrative? Well, the quality that has made mosses the prey of an illegal trade is simply their aesthetic appeal. Soft, velvety, and moist, mosses are extremely pleasant to the touch and calming to look at. Some people are willing to pay large amounts of money to collect them and put them in private gardens. However, most of the mosses that move in this underground black market are actually sold to companies/wholesalers for use in potting/gardening soil, plant nurseries, decor, and as craft materials. The majority of the preserved mosses in your run-of-the-mill chain craft store, planters, floral wreaths, or very-much-dead living wall decorations are gathered illegally, bleached to death, and then dyed green. This goes for a lot of prepackaged peat moss and soil mix blends as well.

Even though it is illegal to gather moss in public places (in the US, at least), people still harvest it. Why? Probably because there's a fair amount of money to be made and the consequences are very rarely enforced, and when they are, they are quite light--usually a $50 fine at worst if you're caught. Most of this black market moss is actually poached from the national park system, with Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest usually being the hardest hit regions.

Mosses play vital roles in many ecosystems, provide homes for threatened species, regulate water distribution in forests, and help with erosion, so their loss is a terrible blow. Additionally, moving such large quantities of mosses from one location to another may spread unwanted, invasive hitchhikers, like insects that lay their eggs in the plants, or even seeds and spores.

I'll end on this thought:

It can take 20 years for a small patch of moss removed from a fallen tree to grow back with the right moisture conditions.

How long would it take to regrow 82 million pounds?