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Project Noah Nature School
Brachythecium albicans
I am at a loss as to where to begin looking to identify this. I am looking for advice, opinions, guesses, whatever you can offer. The longest tuft had "hair" that was 1½-2 cm long. There were no less than four tufts on this short stump. The tufts were a light brown with no variation in color from root to tip or tuft to tuft.
This spotting was found on a short section of a small, broken off dead tree trunk (1 meter tall x 4 cm diameter) which stood on the banks of a small stream along the edge of a jungle air strip (300 masl) in the Amazon rainforest of SE Ecuador.
These tufts are so obviously not a part of the original plant I thought I should try to find what they are. Perhaps a type of fungus or moss? I am wide open to any suggestion. Any time I put "hair" in the search equation I get all sorts of fungus for mammals. Thanks for any insight you can lend.
Thanks for the ID Brian. Last time I was out I got some more pictures of what looks like the same thing, but green. I appreciate the help. Even with the new pictures I wasn't coming up with anything.
I found this moss while researching and I'm not positive but it is the closest I've found. Even though the reference is "Flora of North America" it is found in South America. Much of the description in the reference seemed similar to your pics, such as orange, elongated and recurved stems.
Thanks Brian. I hadn't thought about "distressed" or dying moss, just brown moss. You may be right. Thanks for your input. I'll see what other kinds of ideas may come up. I've never put "moss" in a spotting and know absolutely nothing of classifications. Absolutely everything down here is covered in moss: trees, leaves, rocks, turtles sloths :-) I make sure I don't stand still too long to keep the moss and vultures at bay :-) Thanks again Brian.
Tukup I might be completely wrong but its possible you have a distressed moss. Whatever killed the tree is most likely affecting the moss. I say this in part because I have been fooled by the exactly the same thing here in Washington. I found brown moss many times and it usually turns out to be dying or dried out moss.
Spotted on Apr 21, 2019
Submitted on Apr 29, 2019
