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natural history: mosses

Random image of Blue Tier mosses

The prevalent greenish growth on the ground as well as on trees and fallen logs in the forest comprise of mosses and liverworts, often indistinguishable from each other to the naked eye. Both groups may be found growing on the ground, on rocks or on living or dead trees, often occupying the same niche.

Apart from the thallose liverworts which look quite distinct, one simple guide is that mosses generally (but not always) have their leaves arranged spirally along a stem and the leaves have a mid-vein ('costa'), but liverworts usually have two or more rows of leaves and lack the central vein. However there are exceptions to these and we need to look at other characteristics help determine to which group a specimen belongs.

The most obvious form of dispersal is through spores contained in the capsule. Under suitable conditions these develop into masses of filamentous protonema which give rise to buds that grow to the typical moss we are familiar with. This explains why mosses are rarely encountered as single plants but always as clumps.

However mosses are also capable of vegetative reproduction from tissue fragments as well as from 'gemmae' - minute propagules produced in vast numbers on the entire leaf, leaf tip, leaf axil or on the rhizoids or costa. On the right we have a specimen of Pohlia flexousa with masses of gemmae ready to be dispersed - immersing the stem in water dislodged large numbers of gemmae which would have established identical plants under the right conditions.

We begin with some of the more common species. Where available we have provided closeups of capsules and leaf shape, and hope to do this for all the species listed. Cell details are usually from mid-leaf or higher unless otherwise noted. There ought to be sufficient detail in the inserts for recognition at least to the generic level. Beyond that we recommend using one of the books below.

We have a page of thumbnails (170KB)

['?' denotes some uncertainity in keying out specimens]

Literature:
- Malcolm, W. & Malcolm, N. The Mosses of Tasmania on CDRom provides the standard key in the form of .pdf pages; beautifully illustrated!
- Meagher, D, & Fuhrer, B., A Field Guide to the Mosses and Allied Plants of Southern Australia, Flora of Australia Supplementary Series, Number 20 - Australian Biological Resources Study/The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, 2003; (ISBN 0 642 56828 6)
- Buck, W. R., Vitt, D. H. & Malcolm, W. M., Key to the genera of Australian Mosses is the standard work on the subject but as the title suggests, does not descend to specific level (ISBN 0 642 568197)
- Flora of Australia Volume 51 (Mosses 1). Canberra & Melbourne: ABRS and CSIRO Publishing (2006) (ISBN 0 643 09240 4) is the first of a projected three volume series on Australian mosses; includes keys to many genera and species

Web:
- University of Tasmania has a section on mosses - a key to their identification is being developed.
- Tree of Life has an introduction together with a diagram of the moss life cycle.
- Glime, Janice M., 2007 Bryophyte Ecology, Volume 1 is available online in the form of several dozen .pdf files.
- University of British Columbia provides a glossary of some terms commonly used in describing mosses
- The largest collection of moss images on the web (superb photography by Michael Luth, mainly of European mosses)

Page URL: http:/www.bluetier.org/nature/mosses.htm

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