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Project Noah Nature School
I'm an Environmental Science major, and am fascinated with temperate ecosystems, and their associated non-vascular communities.
Kirkland, Washington, USA
This is a moss, but not sphagnum.
This looks like a type of clubmoss to me
Yeah pull one of the plants out and post a picture of its profile. Leucolepis has a small "treelike" appearance. Climacium is a bit different.
I believe what you have here is Polytrichum commune.
Nice! this is either of the two genus' Leucolepis, or Climacium. Both have similar archegonia.
James, this looks allot like a common bryophyte to the PNW of North America called Polytrichum commune. It might also be native to your area too. This photo is very interesting. It shows one species: P. commune (if it is) which is a dessication tolerant species, and another moss which seems to be desiccated and dormant- dessication avoiders. P. commune can continue metabolic processes during times of relatively low environmental humidity due to primitive conductive tissues: hydroids. These primitive structures are unique to only a few genus' of mosses.
Thanks Hema, actually its only the stem cross-section that is displayed, which was easy to get using a razor and scalpel. Its actually the branch leaves that are extremely difficult to get. Luckily for this guy I don't have to get those.
fantastic moss! This P. undulatum was the first moss I keyed out. i believe the new genus name has changed to Buckiella.
Is this on bark? tree base?. If so it might be Dicranowesia. I am posting a spotting of it right now. The specimen I have has no sporophytes though.
