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Moss or What??

9 years ago

Hi everyone! I know almost nothing about botany and didn't even know how to begin searching for this on-line. This was photographed 2 days ago growing on some rocks in Game Land 38 by Wolf Swamp near Reeders, Pennsylvania. Is it moss or lichen or what? Just curious! Thanks!

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Comments (5)

lycopus
9 years ago
Fruticose lichen. Perhaps a species of Cladonia.
Box_Turtle
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks!! It's really a very interesting little plant!
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Got any shopping centers near you or a bank or something similar that has landscaped beds of low lying shrubs that are watered on a regular basis? If so then go look and see if you can find any moss growing in the shaded portions of those planters. If so then that should tell you if your water is ok for moss. Also note the type of moss you find. Not all mosses are created equal! Thinner leaved mosses may be more sensitive to your water than those with thicker walls in their leaf cells. If your moss is natural then maybe the drought is something the mosses have evolved to be able to rebound from in the course of time??
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Concrete is alkaline because it is made with lime. Cedar is on the acid side. Glass is inert so it won't have a measurable pH. You can tell if a rock contains lime by doing an acid test. The pH of other substrates might be determined by mixing with distilled water and testing the pH of the solution. I believe there are protocols for this. Mosses don't have roots but most have rhizoids which may serve an analogous function. They can also have hydroids and leptoids that serve functions analogous to xylem and phloem. There are over 10,000 species of mosses and they don't all have the same cultural requirements. There are two ways one can approach this problem: 1) Identify the moss species and look up the habitat requirements or 2) select species growing on substrates similar to the one you want to grow them on. Means for attaching moss propagules (leaf fragments ect.) only need to last as long as it takes for new growth to become established. A misting system can help with the process. I've seen white glue (e.g. Elmer's) used as well as cloth mesh to hold the moss fragments to the surface. On soil you can just press the lower portion of ramets into the soil. If you get the substrate, light and moisture regime right then the moss should become established, although competition from vascular plants or other mosses can be an issue.
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I agree with dirtmonkey. Buttermilk is great for outside growth only but the rest is not needed. If one were growing moss outside; mix chopped moss with clay from the ground along with a little ground-up peat. Add water just enough to make it useable. Place this mixture over a rock or area and cover with cheese cloth. Tie in place with bonsai wire or cotton string. Lightly mist daily and insure it stays moist. Place in a semi shaded area and moss should sprout. There are many ways to grow moss. Air flow is important. Moss needs the air. The bark chip idea is also a great one. I use composted finely chopped pine bark. I then ground it after it is composted. Leaf mold is also great.
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wisconsitom
9 years ago
.....and algae....and blue-green algae, all rolled into one! We tend to think of these symbiotic relationships as somehow rare or unusual. I was watching a professor explain last night that we too are "lichens", in that we've totally co-evolved with the organisms on and in us that do many jobs for us. When you look closer, you can't really say we're single organisms either!

Okay, back to plants.

+oM
Box_Turtle
Original Author
9 years ago
Hey, wisconsitom, "you can't really say we're single organisms either!" WOW! That's fascinating and sort of a beautiful concept tool. I wish I could pick your brain for a few hours.
wisconsitom
9 years ago
My brain, such as it is, is open to being picked most any time, via these here interwebs! Glad you enjoyed.

No, I'm not physically sitting here at this desk 24/7. But I do come around at regular intervals to see what's happening in this and several other gardenweb forums.

That lecture was beyond fascinating! Turns out that cells of "helper" organisms-we're talking bacteria here-far, far outnumber our own, within "our" bodies. And our bodies long ago learned that it is much more effective and efficient to farm out many tasks to these ride-along organisms. From an energy budget standpoint, "we" get much more bang for the buck, so to speak, than if our own systems had to come up with all these functions completely on their own, things like digestion, etc.

Where it gets real interesting is that there is essentially no discreet evolution of Homo sapiens without the co-evolution of these other organisms. We've evolved together, never having been separate from each other.

+oM

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