March 2012 Desktop Calendar

This is the moss Anacamptodon splachnoides. I just love the sound of that name! You can read more about this species in two earlier posts (Post #1 here & Post #2 here). 

With snow on the ground here in Connecticut hopefully this image will help me last until the green has arrived this spring.
 

If you are interested in downloading this desktop calendar follow the instructions below. 

1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly from the blog post you will loose a lot of resolution.)

2 - Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the image, and chose the option that says, "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use as Desktop Picture". The wording may vary.  

3 - If the image does not fit your desktop neatly, you may have to adjust the image (Mac: System Preferences > Desktop > Screen Saver > Desktop; Windows: Control Panel > Display > Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

Any issues or suggestions please let me know. These calendars are an experiment in-progress.

Moss Stickers

I was cleaning out my office drawers and came across a mossy item that I had not seen in months. (My office drawers tend to become a disaster over the course of the semester.) It was a sticker book made from my moss photos, many of which have been used on this blog. The company that I used is at www.moo.com and is based out of the UK. I had heard about them from somewhere and really liked the idea of making a sticker book. The books come with 16 perforated pages and you can upload a large number of images. I think that I could have had every sticker in the book of a different photo. Instead I picked a set of 12 that I liked, because I knew I would be giving them away. I passed out sheets of these stickers to my labmates and many of them ended up on the fronts of their laboratory notebooks. It wasn't exactly where I had imagined them sticking, but they seem to have enjoyed them. I even have a couple of sheets left! Now I just have to decide where to stick them...

The Stickers shown in the photo from upper left to right: Polytrichum gametophyte stems with fall leaves, Polytrichum stems up close, and Funaria hygrometica. Second Row: Leucobryum mixed with Dicranum, Leucobryum tuft, and Leucobryum upclose. Lower sheet, top row: Anacamptodon capsule, Tetraphis gemmae cups, and Sphagnum. And finally Sphagnum leaf cross section, Tetraphis peristome teeth at the top of the capsule, and Tetraphis gemmae.

The Knothole Moss (Part 2)

Here is an up close and personal shot of the peristome and capsule of Anacamptodon splachnoides. This is the portion of the moss that enabled me to identify it to species.

Features of Note:
1. The capsule is upright with a constriction just below the opening of the mouth.
2. The exostome (outer ring of teeth) consists of 16 teeth that are joined in pairs at the base and are yellow-brown in color. When dry they are curved back away from the mouth as seen here.
3. The endostome (inner ring of teeth) is less obvious. It is composed of 8 or 16 thin filaments that alternate with the larger teeth. They are red-brown in color and are approximately half the size of the larger exostome teeth. These filaments are a little hard to see in this photo. If you zoom in you may be able to see them projecting into the opening of the mouth. With a hand lens and in person they are a great deal easier to see.

The Knothole Moss (Part 1)

This small moss occurs in dense, dark green mats and is typically found growing on wet tree bark in sheltered crevices such as knotholes. The bark that it grows on is usually soft and rotten. I found this specimen growing on a decaying tree stump in a Connecticut forest. This species has a widespread, but sporadic distribution across eastern North America. (I hadn't known this fact when I identified it, but I guess that means I was pretty lucky to find this species.) The leafy gametophyte portion of this plant resembles a number of other plagiotropic or creeping mosses. (Plagiotropy is when the plant is orientated parallel to the surface it is growing on.) The sporophyte capsules are upright with the mouths open to the sky. The defining features that I used to identify this species involve the peristome teeth. ( I have a zoomed in shot of thees teeth that will better illustrate these diagnostic features.) The scientific name for this species is Anacamptodon splachnoides.