On Saturday March 5th, Mr Watt and I went on a walk in Fort Townsend State Park (WA) to learn about mosses from a very knowledgeable guide associated with the Jefferson Land Trust Natural History Society. We learned about the incredible diversity of the green stuff that seems to be growing on everything in the Pacific NorthWet.
It’s been wet lately, so everything is an intense green. When summer arrives, mosses will look very different while they wait out the dry spells.
All the mosses in this Bucket are classified as true mosses.
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Mosses are primitive plants and absorb moisture directly rather than transporting water up through roots and stems. Leaves of most mosses are a single cell thick. Mosses anchor themselves to whatever they are growing on, whether that is the ground, a fallen log, a living tree trunk, a house roof, or a car. But they aren’t drawing nutrients from the substrate upon which they grow.
The first moss we encountered on our walk was Broom Moss. The unique characteristic of this moss is that it has long narrow leaves that curve to one side. Here’s a sample in Mr. Watt’s hand. This moss forms dense mats on logs and stumps.
Our second moss was the Cat-tail moss growing along a tree branch. It forms long strands that hang down belong the branch while on top it has the very different look of a branching frond. It is very common, draping from tree branches throughout our woods. It is always green so it can be distinguished from the more gray-green lichens that can also drape tree branches in our PNW forests.
Next up is the Oregon beaked moss. It has beautifully branched, symmetric stems that taper like miniature ferns. They creep along the ground and stay relatively flat against the substrate. They can get quite long or they can form mats of short branches. They seem to be very variable in their appearance but are very common. When we got home from our nature hike, we found mats of Oregon beaked moss all over the rocks in our front yard and on the boards from which our raised garden beds have been built.
Beautiful glossy Badge moss provided our first example of separate male and female plants. Badge moss grows along the forest floor and each individual stalk in the mat stands quite upright. The female plants form tall slender stalks with spore capsules at the top. It’s only early March and these sporophytes look fresh. Badge moss must get an early start on Spring. The male plants have a flattish rosette at the top of their stems. Our guide described these as “splash cups” that could propel sperm a greater distance when droplets of water fell into them.
The individual plants of Menzie’s tree moss look like little palm trees or tiny umbrellas from the side. From the top, where the casual observer might see them, they look like a dense mat of frilly circles. These have also already formed sporophytes this season.
Stair-step moss was one of the most distinctive species we learned about. It’s a lovely feathery moss that grows another tier each year. It forms a light fluffy mat with some height above the substrate upon which it grows. It also has a slightly pink tone from its stems. It just looks soft as if it would make a great pillow. It likes Western redcedar/ Western hemlock forests which is exactly the habitat in which we found it.
This moss has other common names such as Snake moss or Worm moss which seem to make more sense than anything resembling cotton. Apparently, the wavy-leaved feature is clear when viewed under a microscope. Our group gave it another name, Slithering. It looks like snakes climbing over each other. It forms flattened mats on logs. The leaves themselves are also flat along the stem.
The male plants of Fan moss look like a ceiling fan with a dark center. Fan moss can form a spreading mass of large-leaved plants.
With all this diversity — feathery, fern-like, stringy, leafy, slithering, flat, or upright — there is no way I can ever again see a green mass and think “That’s just moss.” Of course, it could be a liverwort, but that’s a different bucket.
For more information on mosses, Pojar and Mackinnon, Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, is a great book.
Your turn! What’s green in your backyard on this fine day? All nature observations are welcome in the comments below.
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