Recyclable

Just another stump. Loaded with lichen, fungi, and mosses. And rotting wood.

Crumbling.

Or maybe I should call it a recycling operation. Turning the remains of an old tree into nutritious soil.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Un tronco viejo, cubierto con líquenes, hongos, y musgos. Lleno de madera podrida.

O mejor, lo puedo llamar un centro de recyclaje, que convierte un viejo árbol en suelo nutritivo.

Cat's tongues, Electrified tails, and Oregon hat decor.

It's a while since I've seen cat's tongue fungus, and never more than one at a time. This week, on the Canyonview trail, there were many, mostly on the back side of mossy logs.

Cat's tongue, Pseudohydnum gelatinosum. AKA quivering spine fungus, white tooth jelly, etc. The moss, I think, is Electrified Cat's tail. To go with the tongues.

On another log. I like the delicate scalloped edges. The stalk often extends to the side, towards the woody base.

Red-belted polypore, Fromitopsis pinicola, wearing a hat decorated with Oregon beaked moss.

Orange jelly, on a very wet log. It hadn't been raining, but this forest is very damp, and takes days of sunshine to dry out. Note the tiny, dark blue buttons; probably early lichen settlers.

Trying to understand

Mosses are confusing enough. But Ma Nature likes to have us completely bewildered. So we have liverworts, which look like mosses, act like mosses, and grow intermingled with mosses. Our guide on the moss walk kept pointing out bits of green that looked like all the other bits of green, and calling them liverworts. Even with the hand lens I was carrying, I couldn't see the difference.

"And what is that one?"

Everything's somewhere on the web, if you look long enough. I found a site from Australia that explains the difference so clearly that even I can see it.

First, look for sporophytes, the spore-bearing capsules.

The green or red capsules are sporophytes, growing spores.

It's always possible, and very easy, to determine whether you have a moss, liverwort or hornwort if sporophytes are present. Remember that a sporophyte consists of a spore capsule, with or without a supporting stalk or seta.

Are groups of spore capsules held aloft on complex structures?
The bryophyte is a liverwort.

A fuzzy head, like a pussy willow or a grass ear, would be a complex structure. If the "moss" has those, it's a liverwort.

If the stem is translucent (and often colourless) the bryophyte in question is almost certainly a liverwort.

If the stalk supporting the capsule is opaque and coloured green, brown or red the bryophyte in question is a moss.

 If sporophytes are absent you'll naturally need to look at some gametophyte features, the first step being to see whether you have a thallose or a leafy bryophyte. A thallose bryophyte is either a liverwort or a hornwort. A leafy bryophyte is either a moss or a liverwort.

(Hornworts are aquatic; we can ignore them for now.)

If the plant has no clear stems or leaves, it is thallose, and therefore a liverwort.

The first thing to do is to see whether you have a thallose or a leafy bryophyte. The almost leathery thallus of a robust thallose bryophyte is fairly easy to pick. Similarly, in some leafy species the leaves-on-stems growth habit is very easy to see. 

For this, with some of the plants, we need a lens; some liverwort thalli look like stems and leaves to the naked eye.

So the photo above is clearly a moss. The sporophytes are simple, held on a tall stalk, with red tints. The leaves grow attached to the stems, not as continuations of the stem. (Look at the stem below the red sporophyte on the right.)

In the great majority of moss species the mature spore capsule opens by means of a well-defined mouth. Remember that a liverwort spore capsule never has a well-defined mouth.

To see that, a lens is probably needed. And being there at the right time, when the spores are mature, or already released.

There is much more info on the page I'm quoting, details on how to distinguish thallose from leafy structures, photos, and exceptions to the rules. (Aren't there always?) But the sporophyte detail is enough for a rough guide, for now, for me.

The moss is green and leafy; even in this photo, the stems are visible as a separate structure from the leaves. The liverwort is one of the leafy ones; the leaves are short and stubby. Luckily, it's red.

Dripping

The rain had used up the water reserves in the clouds, and was reduced to a sporadic sprinkle when we started on the moss walk. That was out in the clear; under the trees, masses of moss overhead substituted for clouds, holding the water for a while, then dropping large blobs on our heads - splat!

A handful of wet moss can feel almost dry, until you squeeze it; then water gushes out.

I was glad I was carrying only the pocket camera; it's easier to keep dry, and cheaper, in case it's ruined. Within five minutes inside the forest, I had to start drying the lens between shots; many were blurry. And before we finished the circuit, the camera just plain refused to take any more photos. An hour in the warmth beside a wood stove, with its innards exposed to the air, fixed it; it works again. Whew!

This sampler of moss photos are no-name-brand; I haven't been able to identify them with any confidence.

The woods were hairy, dark, and deep. (Sorry, Robert Frost!)

And lumpy.

A different variety of lumps. With leaf lichen and infant Cladonia in the open spaces.

Wet country. Even the sign is wet.

Dead but still standing; a tall stump carries the black shelf fungi that killed it. One of the naturalists on the walk is properly dressed for the weather; Tilley hat and rubber rain gear.

Another stump, well rotted, full of woodpecker holes, with a crown of dangling moss.

At least three different mosses here, with last year's maple leaves, and fresh new buds on a twig.

Almost looks like electrified cats' tail again. With leaf lichens.

Leafy moss with sporophytes. The ripe ones are red; green sporophytes are immature. Raindrops run down some of the stalks. (Aka setae.)

Electrified cat's tail

Mosses are difficult to identify. (Typical Canadian understatement; begin again.) Mosses are fiendishly difficult to identify.

They change from one day to the next, depending on the weather. They grow in compact mounds, uniformly coloured, one leaf blending into the next. They are multicultural; as many as 40 different species can live together on one tree, intermingled. Male and female plants may seem to be separate species. And they are best seen in the pouring rain, when cameras and magnifying lenses are at a disadvantage.

Back at home, Googling mosses, looking at photos, I find apparent matches. But most of them, once I follow the links, refer to them generically, as "moss". It seems that other people are as befuddled as I am.

Moss experts try to help, giving specific mosses easily remembered names. "Finger-licking good moss," "palm tree moss," "beaked moss," "wavy-leaved cotton moss," "goose-neck moss," and my favourite, "electrified cats'-tail moss." Now, the problem is remembering which of all those green, spiky mosses goes with which handy name.

This, I think, is Oregon beaked moss. I could (easily) be wrong. Note the lone, red sporophyte. (Or Rhytidiadelphus loreus? See comment by Matt Goff.*)

And this should be Electrified cats-tail, Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus.

Zooming in on one of the dozens of mosses on a short trail. Unidentified, for the moment. (Buckiella undulata*)

This one has a strong central stem. (Oregon beaked moss?*)

And in this one, the stem and branches are brown, even on a wet, green day. The branches here are opposite: compare to those on the Oregon beaked moss, which are alternate. (Glittering wood moss, Hylocomium splendens.*)

A hanging moss. These grow mainly on branches. (Brachythecium?*)

I thought I had memorized the order in which our guide, Jocie Brooks, had showed us the mosses, and could co-ordinate them with the sequence of photos. I was too optimistic. We saw repeats at random throughout the walk, and my list got scrambled in my mossy brain.

At least I remember clearly which one was the "Finger-licking good moss". Unfortunately, by then my camera had gone on strike because of the rain. Can't win.

*Updated after comments by Matt Goff.

Grows on rock

Even in the most inhospitable of locations, life will find a way. Enthusiastically, even.

On a tall rock face, scoured by wind, rain, ice and snow; alternately baked and frozen, dripping wet and bone-dry; bereft of soil, hard and knife-edged; lichens, mosses, ferns, and even trees find a foothold and happily settle in.

Cliff face over my head, beside Upper Campbell Lake. Bottle-brush moss lines the cracks, small lumps of dark brown moss speckle the bare face of the rock. There's even a bit of grass taking advantage of a dip.

Across the lake: yellow and green mosses basking in watery afternoon sunshine.

The moss is a primary colonizer; it traps bits of dust from the air and crumbling rock, and adds its own organic detritus. Other hardy plants and animals find shelter and nutrients under the moss, and a community is born.

Licorice ferns, three kinds of lichens, pine needles from the trees above, and mosses. The white stuff behind the ferns is snow.

A haircap moss, growing on the rock face.

At the foot of the cliff, on a cement wall (no more hospitable than the cliff). Moss and its spore cases.

And under and through all this green life, beetles, ants, springtails, and assorted flies go about their business. There's good eating up there on the mossy crags!

Still here. Where the arrow points to lichen.

Green tails, bears, lungs, and a smile

In our wet, shady rainforests, sometimes sunlight sneaks under the canopy with its yellow highlighter.

I passed the entrance to a trail leading down into a valley, parked, and went exploring.

All the colours of green

It was a short trail that dropped down the hill to a cleared area about the right size for a tiny cabin. It seems that was the plan; there's a good pile of alder firewood, sawed to small woodstove size, now gently rotting, soaked through and growing moss. Tipsy fence posts line the trail, and a solid cement block with a fluffy moss cushion barricades the entrance. No-one has been working on the site, though, for a few years.

A rusting iron loop embedded in the cement block, peeking through the moss.

The shady ground between trees is mostly covered in evergreen ferns, still dripping wet on this sunny afternoon. Mosses climb the trees and drape from bare branches.

Cat-tail moss and Licorice fern.

A Cheshire cat smile.

Thick, cushiony moss and Licorice fern on an old cottonwood.

Licorice ferns often seem to be growing as single stalks, as in the first photo above, but each stalk has sprouted from a long rhizome that runs along under the moss. The rhizome is brownish, up to a foot long; "they" say (but I have never tested this, because I am reluctant to rip out that beautiful moss) that it tastes of licorice.

Licorice ferns are interesting edibles. More and more restaurants are using them to infuse sauces, make teas, or serve candied. The anise-like flavor is apparent when the root is nibbled raw, but in a sauce I find it much more subtle, with a touch of a licorice sensation on the tongue and a hint of sweetness. (From Fat of the Land)

The fern fronds are evergreen, at least in our wet forests.

Unidentified moss on a stump.

I couldn't find this moss anywhere in my book. The individual leaflets (or are they clumps of tinier leaves?) are almost like miniature maple leaves.

At the head of the trail, where sunlight percolates through more consistently, recent wind storms had brought down large quantities of shredded lungwort from far overhead. I found a few overgrown trees within my reach, later on that afternoon, at Rock Bay.

Lungwort, a few other lichens, and a bit of moss, keeping the tree warm.

On this tree, the lichen is pale green and brownish; along the trail in the bush, even the torn leaves were much greener. This lichen absorbs water, much as moss does, and becomes green and flexible. Here it is on a rock in Bella Coola:

Looks good enough to eat.

 Compare those to this, on a dry tree at water's edge, exposed to sunlight and wind.

The little "warts" are isidia, reproductive structures.

Lungwort and a hanging clump of beard lichen.

Mushrooms and mosses

At Clayton Creek

On a rock

In the duff at the base of a tree.

Just because

There's no rhyme or reason to this post. I'm suffering from brain overload.

These are photos from this past week, in no particular order.

Pair of flies on a hawkweed flower.

A tiny bird's nest left over from last year. It is about 2 to 3 inches across. Beach Grove.

From my back yard, a blue snail. I've never seen one this colour before. The camera sometimes lies, but this is what my eyes told me, too.

Cat on a cement wall, Beach Grove.

The wall and cat were far across the dunes. Something down the crack had his attention, and I stood on the beach shouting like an idiot, "Kitty, kitty! Look over here, kitty!" He finally deigned to give us a quick glance.

A huge forsythia grew in front of an old farmhouse down the street. Untrimmed, it hung over the sidewalk, causing pedestrians to duck under it or step into the road. Every year around this time, Laurie brings me an armload of its branches, loaded with buds. Not this year. They're building a new retail/housing complex there, and have torn out every scrap of vegetation.

I cut a few twigs from the bottom of a shrub in Crescent Beach. At home, they burst into happy bloom.

Lbb, Beach Grove

Moss sporophyte, spore case.

A few days ago, we walked down Crescent Beach in the teeth of a vicious wind. The birds, gulls and eagles mostly, were out in force, playing in the currents. A flock of young eagles would fly out of the trees, then rest on the air, letting the wind blow them sideways back into the forest. Or they would fly far up until they were just dots in the sky, then drop to tree-top levels.

And somewhere in the evergreens on the cliff, a couple of eagles were announcing their romance to the world. He screeched, loudly, over and over. Then she would join in with the bubbly, warbling mating-readiness cry. Hard to describe; a lower tone, liquid, softer than the usual rusty-hinge scream; almost an amplified version of the voice a mother cat uses to greet her kittens. But amplified; very. We could hear her from a good kilometer down the beach.

They would sing their duet for a few minutes, then lapse into silence. Not for long. Again and again they broke into triumphant song.

We kept scanning the trees, looking for a sign of them; we couldn't find them, not even by the shaking of branches, since the wind was tossing everything about. We got photos of playing eagles; dots in the sky against the light. No photos of the mating pair.

Green, gold and warm red-brown

In the grey and beige wasteland of the wintering dunes inland from Boundary Bay, miniature gardens glow with jewel tones:

Moss and lichens on an ancient log.

Garden in the round

Moss and lichen on the top of a piling at the Westham Island bridge: