Knee Deep in Moss

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." --William Shakespeare

I have always loved to see moss cozying up to the feet of trees, draping over decomposing logs, and cushioning rock surfaces with luxuriant velvet.

A neat thing about mosses is that to get to know them in their natural habitat you must usually get down on your knees. Doing so immediately takes you out of your usual way of looking and perceiving and engages you physically.

Your hands and knees ground you at four points. Perhaps your trousers get damp and a little dirty. You feel the different textures of the leaf litter and inhale the perfume of the humus. You stroke the furry surface of the moss and it tickles your hands.

You marvel at the vibrant shades of green that seem to glow amidst the surrounding shades of brown and grey. Or perhaps the moss serves as an emerald background for jewel toned fall leaves.

The undulating surface when seen from your full height now becomes a miniature jungle of lush intricate plants. Moving your face ever closer, tensing the muscles around your eyes to sharpen your powers of sight, you attempt, but just fail, to focus clearly on the details you know are there. You bump up against the limits of the human eye.

You are literally brought down and humbled by this so-called 'primitive' plant. But you are also lifted up in awe. I find that nature frequently brings me to a kneeling posture, physically or otherwise.

Mosses have been much on my mind lately as our nature writing group has been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Kimmerer is a bryologist, a botanist specializing in mosses and liverworts--or bryophytes. She is also a descendant of North America's indigenous people. Her writing is scientific but also rich with mood, metaphor, myth and sensuality. She is the type of nature writer with whom I feel a kindred spirit.
Mosses will divulge many of their secrets, through the use of tools like hand lens, microscope, and field guide. Different families among the bryophytes are easily distinguished but species identification can be very challenging. I like to think of bryophtyes as a phenomenon, a clan of diverse members, sharing kinship not only among themselves, but as ancestors of other land plants. In some ways they are strikingly similar even to us mammals.

From Kimmerer's book, I learned that mosses are the 'amphibians' of plants. They are the ancient form of plant life that first transitioned from the water to land. Mosses live in communities or colonies with individual plants huddled together shoulder to shoulder. Their life style and reproductive cycle is dependent on this close proximity.

Moss have no roots to take up water from from where they are anchored--their substrate. They dry up, fade and shrink or plump up and green out depending on environmental conditions. The plant takes in CO2, water and minerals through its entire surface. Living close together helps them retain moisture not only for themselves but as participants in an ecosystem. Other organisms benefit. For example, many insects utilize the moist protection of mosses for their own reproductive cycle.

Moss plants occur in two life stages. In the gametophyte stage the plants are green and grow without sexual reproduction. When conditions are right, the gametophytes form microscopic male or female organs. The male structure containing sperm is called the antheridium. The female structure containing the egg is called the archegonium. This a reproductive innovation which mosses first developed. All land plants living today use this strategy of enclosing the egg within a protective womb.

Mosses produce no flowers so they ask for no help by animal pollinators. (Insects inadvertently do help the process along sometimes.) For the male sperm to reach and fertilize the female egg there must be a fluid vehicle. Rain, dew, mist or splashes are required. With sufficient moisture, the antheridum swells until it bursts. It also releases a soaplike substance that helps the miniscule sperm penetrate the surface tension of water droplets to better hitch a ride.

With luck the sperm is able to reach and travel down the neck of an archegonium to an egg.

Once fertilized, the egg is nurtured within the archegonium and grows into the second life stage--the sporophyte. Kimmerer explains science has discovered special cells in the female moss organ that work to transfer nutrients from the parent plant to the developing egg. She compares this function to human placental cells.

Mature sporophytes are usually brown or colorless with a capsule full of powdery spores elevated on a stalk above the green gametophytes. Special teethlike structures on the capsules are responsive to the level of humidity. They open to release the spores when the air is dry (and thus better for dissemination).

Those spores that find a hospitable home will form a new colony of moss, carrying the genetic material of the parent colony forward. The scattered colonies of particular moss species in a patch of woods are all close kin to one another.

Mosses are extremely adaptable--they are found in every ecosystem on earth. Species number over 22,000. Their variety is seemingly endless. Next time you go walking in the woods spend some time on your knees.

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Grass Seeds

More on the theme of seeds. The magenta colored seeds of this wild grass growing in a hot, dry, 9000 foot elevation in Colorado hang from a stem that abruptly makes a right turn.Growing next to them is this tiny grass whose seeded tip curves to form a shepherd's crook. What is the evolutionary advantage of these shapes, I wonder?

Diaspora

Diaspora is a Greek word meaning the scattering of seeds. We are now heading into late summer and plants are setting seed. One of the things I most enjoy at this time of year is marveling at the variety of forms produced by seed bearing plants.

Seeds hold an embryo and carry the genetic material of a new plant. There are three methods evolved by plants to disperse their seeds-by wind, by water, and by animals.

The structures used by plants to get their seeds aloft and carried by the air currents of the earth are masterpieces of engineering. The designs include gliders, parachutes, whirlybirds, and spinners. Gliding seeds are said to have inspired the designs of some early aircraft. I like to think that spinner or whirlybird seeds may have contributed to one of Leonardo Da Vinci's concepts for a flying machine.

An outstanding example of the parachute design is the ubiquitous Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) a member of the Composite family. The seed (achene) is attached by a thin stalk to a radiating plume of bristly hairs (pappus). So equipped, the seeds become airborne in response to the slightest breeze. As is often the case with parachuting seeds, they are arranged in a globular puff. Another name for the dandelion is blowball. The word pappus is Latin for old man.

The Composite family includes sunflowers, daisies, coneflowers, chicory, and thistles. In members of this family, the pappus is modified in a multitude of ways, often to promote the effective dissemination of seeds. For example, in sticktights, the pappus is barbed so that it adheres to passing animals. The characteristic of the pappus is important in identifying the particular species of a Composite blossom.

In his last years, Thoreau was working on an exhaustive research project to determine all of the dominant patterns of seed dispersal within an hour's walk of his home in Concord, Massachusetts. He called it "learning the language of the fields." Thoreau was one of the first American field ecologists to apply Darwin's ideas of natural selection to the subject.

Thoreau died from a respiratory infection before he could finish his manuscript entitled The Dispersion of Seeds. The work is an argument against the then-prevalent theory that some plants grew spontaneously without any root, seed, or cutting from a parent plant. Typically, Thoreau combines keen observation with a view to a larger perspective. His description of the milkweed ends with these thoughts :

I am interested in the fate or success of every such venture which the autumn sends forth. And for this end these silken streamers have been perfecting themselves all summer, snugly packed in this light chest, as perfect adaptations to this end--a prophecy not only of the fall, but of future springs...Who could believe in prophecies...that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds?

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Endless Variations on a Theme

As my perceptions become more acute on this journey into nature, I am more and more in awe of the endless variety of plant shapes and patterns of growth and how/why they evolved. For example, I attempted to "key" out a huge white flowering "weed" found near the C&O Canal towpath near Harper's Ferry, WV this spring. Using the Newcomb's Guide to Wildflowers, I wasn't having much luck, until I realized the plant's resemblance to Queen Anne's Lace (an alien import). I broke off a leaf, crumbled it, sniffed it, even tasted it! Yep, that carroty scent. (Queen Anne's Lace is known as a wild carrot.) This led me to the right page in the book.

The plant was in the parsley family-a common species known as Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) a native to Europe, Africa and Asia, that often grows to over six feet. Since Newcomb's Guide uses a keying method that is based on numbers of petals and leaves and their arrangement, I decided to count the stems in the umbel, and came up with 29. That seemed wierd, so I counted again. And again. Still 29. That brought up the question: what is the "math" behind nature's botanical design?

I had heard about Fibonacci numbers but had never studied them. Fibonacci was a mathematician in the Middle Ages. The numbers emerged as he studied the reproduction patterns of rabbits! The numbers are an infinite series, beginning with the numeral 1, where each successive number is the sum of the two numbers that appear directly before it. Design based on these proportions approximates the "golden ratio," also known as the golden mean, golden number or divine ratio. Expressed as a decimal, the golden ratio is approximately 1.6 , referred to as Phi.

Growth patterns that follow the golden ratio are rampant in nature. Two examples often cited are the spirals of a nautilus shell and seed head of a sunflower. The golden ratio is seen as well in the proportions of the human body--even the structure of DNA is a demonstration of the golden ratio. Not surprising that in classic art and architecture, the golden ratio was considered to be the foundation of beauty.

But back to Cow Parsley. The number 29 was not listed in the Fibonacci series of numbers. But there is another series that models the golden ratio, developed by Lucas, the mathematician who "discovered" Fibonacci's work. This series of numbers is also very prevalent in the growth patterns of plants. The Lucas series replicates the "sum of the previous two numbers" feature, but starts with 2 followed by 1. And there it was, my Cow Parsley's "29." Amazing what trying to identify a weed can lead to....! Now I see the golden ratio everywhere, as in the thistle bud at top.

Solstice Bounty

On solstice Sunday I set off to do some errands and meander country roads. Before I went a half mile, I saw these bumble bees (probably Bombus impatiens according to my bee consultant) and a lone male Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) feasting on nectar in a patch of Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Later, at the entry to the hardware store, I feasted my eyes on flats of annuals, blazing in every color. On my way home, sweet local cherries at a roadside stand made for another kind of feast! It occurs to me that we have insects to thank for so much beauty and bounty in our world.

Our native pollinators like bumblebees, solitary bees, flies, wasps, beetles, butterflies and moths are important to the production of many crops, including sweet cherries. All grasses, many trees and other plants depend on the wind to distribute pollen. But up to a third of the foods that make up our diet depend on insects for pollination including apples, almonds, blueberries, broccoli, cucumbers, peaches, soybeans, strawberries, kiwis, melons, onions, pears, plums and squash. More than half of the fats and oils in our diet owe a debt to insect pollinators.

Certain bats and birds also go after the nectar in flowers, and by doing so, spread pollen. But insects far outdo them. The annual value of the services of native pollinators to U.S. agriculture is estimated between $4.1 and $6.7 billion. Flowering plants provide food not only for humans, but also for animals that in turn provide us with milk or meat. Without our wild pollinators, it is questionable whether humans could survive. Entire ecosystems rest on the relationship between plants and pollinators.

How flowers and insects co-evolved is a fascinating subject. Those plants that depend on wind for pollen dissemination must produce vastly more pollen than those plants that have helpers in the process. Plants have developed colorful blossoms, enticing scents, alluring shapes, and graphic markings to attract these helpers. For example, orchids are famous for their mimicry of female insects of a variety of species. They are able to lure male insects by their odor and appearance. Some plants are pollinated only by one particular species of insect. For example, Darwin predicted that the Comet Orchid of Madagascar, with a deep, seemingly inaccessible nectar source, would have an insect pollinator adapted to reach it. And eventually that insect was identified: a moth with a proboscis that unfurled to awesome proportions.

Biologists tell us that worldwide pollinator populations are waning at an alarming rate. Here in the U.S. more than 50 pollinator species are listed as threatened or endangered. They suffer from the loss and fragmentation of pollinator habitat and the overuse of pesticides.
It would be impossible to replace all the services of native pollinators with those of managed bees. Colonies of bumblebees and honeybees are used commercially in agriculture but are increasingly threatened by disease. Escapees may be spreading disease to native bees.

Anyone who owns property, has a tiny backyard garden, or even a balcony can assist in maintaining habitat -- food, water, shelter and nesting materials--for native pollinators.

When I learned about the importance of native pollinators it underscored how every part of nature is connected to everything else. Now I know that each scrubby pasture, overgrown roadside, or weedy vacant lot is not unproductive. It is home and pantry to multitudes of tiny lives that are crucial to our own existence.

Deceive and Perceive

One type of animal camouflage is known as cryptic coloration. The colors of the animal mimic its habitat to fool the eye of predators or prey. Matching patterns of dark and light in order to blend in with the natural play of shadows, lines and textures in the environment is a highly effective strategy. Predator and prey have co-evolved in their abilities to perceive and deceive one another.

This young black rat snake Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta was coiled on the back of a wrought iron chair in the gazebo of our rented house in Great Cacapon WV this past weekend. My daughter entered to set the table for our evening meal and had quite a surprise. The snake makes a nice addition to the floral design, don't you think? However, my son-in-law removed the snake before we sat down to eat. I would imagine humans' ability to see snakes despite their attempt to camouflage themselves would be an important evolutionary advantage!

A childhood experience that made a big impression on me was the late summer evening when my father asked who wanted to accompany him on the short drive down to our small pumphouse. My younger sister and brother eagerly jumped up to go with him, but uncharacteristically for me, I hung back, preferring to stay on the porch with my mother. When my father returned he had a story for us. While my siblings had fumbled at opening the heavy car door, my father started toward the pumphouse. Directly in front of him were two stumpy mottled sticks lying across the path. Just before stepping on them, he realized what they were--a pair of copperhead snakes out for their evening hunt, or perhaps mating, but now attempting to camouflage themselves in the waning light. My father pointed out in a serious tone that if I had joined them on the errand, I may have jumped out more quickly than my siblings and encountered the snakes before he did. I believe this was the first time I grasped the meaning of the word "fate."

I don't remember if my father killed those particular snakes, but we frequently encountered copperheads, black snakes, and tiny ringneck snakes when I was growing up in Maryland. Sometimes the poisonous copperheads and even the larger of the nonvenomous black snakes (often 5 or 6 feet long) were slain if they encroached near our mountainside home. Mostly they seemed to stay in the nether region of overgrown briars and poison ivy between the driveway and the public road.

Our German Shepherd "Rinnie" would kill a snake by repeatedly grasping it in his mouth,violently shaking it from side to side, then flinging it away through the air.. He seemed able to avoid its jaws by this method. One time however, he was bitten on his paw by a copperhead. I remember pleading with my father to take him to the veterinarian as Rinnie began to show the effects of the venom. I rode along to the doctor's office in the back seat of our car with the dog's head cradled in my lap. Rinnie survived to hunt copperheads another day.

Despite the presence of these creatures, my siblings and I ran freely around the meadows and woods of our country property. For a while my older sister kept a milk snake in what I remember as a tall finely crafted wooden case with glass windows and a hinged door that latched with a metal clasp.

The local folk lore said that black snakes were a good thing to have around your house-they kept copperheads away. I don't know if this true. I do know they make pleasant pets, except for the problem of feeding them live prey. It would have been nostalgic to have caught the little rat snake for the enjoyment and study of my 4 year old grandson (and my own), if only I still had that beautiful wooden case. I do prefer to leave wild things wild and study them in their natural habitat.

The other photo is a Fowler's Toad Bufo fowleri seen at Eidolon Nature Preserve. It blended in perfectly with the leaf litter. My eye and camera snagged it only because it moved and disrupted the camouflage pattern. B. fowleri uses its earth toned skin to elude predators such as birds and small mammals. Like other toads, it can also release a foul liquid from the 'warts' on its back to irritate a predator's mouth. Another survival tactic it might use is to play opossum-it will lie belly up as if dead.

The genius of crytic coloration is the cuttlefish, a relative of the squid and octopus. It has special cells in its body that can change in color, pattern and texture almost instantly to mimic the variety of surfaces it encounters on the sea floor, allowing it to merge seamlessly with its surroundings. It has a very complex brain in order to control the up to 20 million cells that produce these optical illusions.

To Be Born

Have you ever seen a just-born child? The small figure is luminous--so infused with the energy of becoming that the outlines of his or her body appear to waver like a mirage. Even the most cynical of us can't help but be awed. The word miracle rises to the lips.

I had a similar experience on a dragonfly foray with a naturalist friend last Saturday.
We were at a low water bridge on the Cacapon River in Morgan County, West Virginia. It was one of those days in May that foretell the heat and humidity of July. We seemed to have entered a giant incubation chamber, for life was hatching all around us.

Cool water from weeks of spring rain flowed between banks of freshly leaved trees, newly sprouted grasses, and wildflowers budding or in bloom. The sun's rays danced through the air, setting all things green ashimmer.

Tiger and zebra swallow-tailed butterflies flitted in small clouds and flocked to sip at puddles. Their wings looked impossibly fragile. Not a tatter or speck of dust marred the patterns of creamy yellow, pale celadon and inky black. A drop of columbine red punctuated the base of each wing like the dot of a exclamation mark.

A green heron with a watchful eye rimmed in gold perched motionless on a snag midstream. Flashing scarlet helmets and bars of black and white, two male red-bellied woodpeckers alighted at the base of a sycamore. They hesitated, artfully askew on the pale trunk. I imagined them as bright enameled jewelry adorning the breast of a 1940's screen siren.

Dragonflies had recently passed through their metamorphosis from aquatic larvae to airborne adults. They cruised the river's edge like miniature hovercraft. Each was escorted, in perfect formation, by the image of a watery twin.

Low to the ground, tiny native bees meandered here and there to gather nectar. A brown water snake slithered through the shallows. All the while, the insistent murmur of American toads played as background music.

My friend snared an Applachian Jewelwing damselfly with her net. It was an immature male--still only half dressed in its armor of emerald green. She gently folded its wings to meet above the thorax and passed it to me. The finely veined gossamer was slightly damp and clung to my fingers.

The word nature descends from the Latin nasci "to be born." Capturing bits of data is often the goal of observation in the field. There is a special excitement as another piece of a giant puzzle slips into place. But what I most enjoy is seeing the world as if revealed for the first time. Deep in my bones, I sense the truth of how all of us--plants, insects, animals, humans--are made of the same stuff. We are born from the same mother. My heart flutters as I whisper a single word: miracle.