Moss Plants and More: Corticolous Mosses at Bioblitz 2009

The Bioblitz a couple of weeks ago went well. I think that we counted about 40 bryophyte species and 40 lichen species in the survey area. We were in both Keney Park in Hartford, CT and in a floodplain area of the Connecticut River. I got some good shots of some pretty cool corticolous mosses. A moss that is corticolous grows on tree bark. Many of them had sporophytes peeking out from amongst the green, as you can see from the photos below.

In the floodplain area that we visited there were tons, I mean tons, of mosquitoes and poison ivy. I have encountered worse mosquitoes before. When I went on a field course to the Bahamas as an undergraduate I was eaten alive by mosquitoes over the two week course. I counted and had hundreds of bites on one leg. However the poison ivy on this Bioblitz excursion was more than I have ever seen before. Knee and hip high patches galore. Vines climbing almost every tree. I often went to bush a branch out of my way only to realize that it was not coming from the tree but from the poison ivy attached to it.

Here is a photo of me hiding from the mosquitoes in my rain jacket. Can you spot all the poison ivy in the background?