Moss Plants and More: travel

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Bryophytes Outdoors

By Jessica M. Budke on Thursday, May 05, 2016

Hanging out with botanists in the field is a great way to learn more about plants and their identification. I recently spent a few days with some awesome botanists in Tennessee at the annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Smoky Mountains National Park.

We looked at wildflowers, trees, shrubs, ferns, and of course mosses. There are also walks for the animal-lovers focusing on salamanders, wild hogs, birds, and bears. A funny anecdote is that the bear walks hardly ever see bears, though you will learn a lot about them on the walk. You are more likely to see a bear driving to a walk or on a walk about wildflowers. That is one of the reasons I like studying plants. They don't move on the landscape nearly as fast.

Next year's Pilgrimage will be held April 11-15, 2017. But if you can't wait until next year to get out into the field to learn some mosses there are courses and forays happening this summer and fall in Maine, Ohio, and Quebec.

For more information on these and other outdoor moss events check out this updated list. If you know of any others I should add to the list drop a message in the comments and I will add it on.

Identifying Mosses with Only a Photo

By Jessica M. Budke on Tuesday, February 16, 2016

A friend of a friend sent me these lovely photos of mosses from Bath, England to identify.

So, where do we start? Well, I usually start with the features that look the most distinctive and sift through my mental card catalog of mosses to see which ones these fit. Sporophytes can be helpful for determining the higher classification for the moss, such as the order or family.

1) The peristome teeth look to be made of many narrow filaments that are twisted at the apex, which = Pottiaceae in my mind.

Now we get to the more difficult part of moss identification. Trying to get lower than family or genus from just a couple photographs. What else can we see.

2) The leaves are topped by long, white awns.

3) Some of the leaves are folded inward.

4) It is growing on rock or concrete.

My tendency is to go with a common species that doesn't contradict the observations we can make from the photos. So my initial thought for this one is Syntrichia ruralis, but that is a species I know from North America and we know this photo was taken in England.

So, does Syntrichia ruralis grow in England or do they have different Syntrichia species we should consider?

Off to the British Bryological Society's Online Field Guide.

They have 13 species/subspecies of Syntrichia listed.

{With additional clicking there are actually only links to pages for 7 species/subspecies.}

They have two subspecies of Syntrichia, but both of them say that capsules on this species are rare. And this specimen has a lot of capsules. So I'll flip through some of the species and see which ones match. They also have great maps in the corner so I pulled up the location of Bath to see if that would help narrow the search.

There are a few that look close, but none that give me that gut feeling of yes we have a match. The awns in the descriptions/drawings seem too short compared to the photos. They look to be at least 1/2 the length of the leaf lamina in the photos. So let's take a step back. A lot of the Syntrichia species were formerly in the genus Tortula, which is also in the Pottiaceae. Let's take a look at some of the species in that genus.

Most of the Tortula species have small awns or are lacking them, except for Tortula muralis.
Check the description of this species out to see what you think compared to the photos.

Long awn - Common species growing on mortared walls - Distribution covers Bath
Nothing from the description is in contradiction to what I can see from the photos. It also points out that Syntrichia species are often larger and the photos look smaller, more similar to the Tortula in size.

I think we have a winner! Tortula muralis is my ID for this species based on the photos and the British Field Guide.

What do you think? Would you give it a different name?

November 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Wednesday, November 04, 2015

The name of this moss describes some of the features that make this species easy to recognize. It is the moss Acrocladium auriculatum. If we break down the name the genus means "acro-" = tip/apical + "-cladium" = branch, which describes the highly pointed branches tips. The specific epithet describes the heart shaped leaves; they are shaped like two earlobes at the base ("auricul-" = ear/earlobe). This species is native to southwestern South America and I came across it during my travels this year to Chile.

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 lose 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 Image as Desktop Picture" or "Save Image As...". The wording may vary. (If saving the image to your computer is the only option, then locate it on your computer and choose the "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" option from there.)

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

October 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Monday, October 05, 2015

Another moss from my trip to southern Chile this past January. Unfortunately I don't have an id for this one. If anyone has any thoughts on a name for this moss, drop me a message in the comments.

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

September 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Some Grimmiaceae mosses hanging out with an intensely yellow lichen pal
from the 2015 SO BE FREE moss foray in the San Bernardino Mountains of California.

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

A Symposium on Southern Hemisphere Bryophytes

By Jessica M. Budke on Tuesday, August 18, 2015

This past January I attended the 2015 conference of the International Bryological Association in southern Chile. It was a great conference and an amazing location to visit!

The symposium advertised below may only be of interest to professional bryologists, but I would highly recommend that anyone looking for a far off vacation adventure that is loaded with bryophytes consider visiting Puerto Williams on the Island of Navarino. A unique piece of traveling to the end of the world is a 30 hour ferry that takes you from the mainland to the island. On the trip nature abounds. Whales, birds, and glaciers are just a few of the amazing sites to see!

On the Dientes Circuit - January 2015

While there I also went on a spectacular 5-day backpacking trip on the island (Dientes Circuit). It was an intense hike through sunny hot valleys, up an over cold windy passes, skiing down mountains on loose rocks, and slogging through piles of mud. A fabulous way to escape civilization and interact with nature!

For nature lovers who are not adventure seeking backpackers, the Omora Ethanobotanical Park is a wonderful natural spot that has beautiful plant and bird life. There is a interpretive trail that introduces you to the common bryophytes of the area. Additionally there are even several pairs of Magellanic woodpeckers that live in the park and researchers are actively studying. I went out to try and see them a couple of mornings but no luck. I think this means I will have to go back to southern Chile to add them to my birding life-list!

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VIII Southern Connections Congress January 18^th - 23^rd 2016

Punta Arenas, Chile

Symposium: Phylogeography & Ecology of Bryophytes in the Southern Hemisphere

Bryophytes are one of the most important components of high latitude floras in terms of diversity, abundance, and ecological function playing key roles in primary succession, water retention, terrestrial carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. At high latitudes bryophytes contribute disproportionately to regional biodiversity, with the Antarctic flora composed almost entirely of bryophytes, and the southernmost tip of the Americas hosting 5% of the world bryophyte diversity on just 0.01% of the earths terrestrial surface. Over the last decade, molecular tools have dramatically shifted paradigms of bryophyte evolution, ecology, and biogeography both globally and in the Southern Hemisphere. Here we bring together cutting edge research on bryophyte phylogeography and ecology in order to highlight the key processes driving diversification, richness, and biogeography of bryophytes across ecosystems and timescales in the Southern Hemisphere.

If you are interested in presenting within, or have questions regarding the symposium please contact the organizers:

Symposium Organizers

Elise Biersma (Cambridge University & British Antarctic Survey, UK, elibi@bas.ac.uk)

Dr. Lily R. Lewis (University of Connecticut, USA, lilyrlewis@gmail.com)

Congress Website & Registration: http://southernconnection2016.com/congress/

Bryology Foray in California

By Jessica M. Budke on Monday, July 06, 2015

Want to experience the wonders of bryophytes in California? Consider attending SO BE FREE 21 (details below). I attended last year when we explored the mosses of the San Bernardino Mountains and the year before that when we were in the hills of Santa Cruz. They were both really great trips! I especially enjoy getting to spend time with both amateur and professional bryologists from across the state and country. It is a great networking opportunity to plug into the bryology community. Hope to see you at the next foray!

This is a photo from the 2015 SO BE FREE foray. I just realized that I hadn't downloaded the photos from my camera. A post with the highlights from that awesome foray will be coming soon!

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The Twenty-First Annual

Spring Outing
Botanical Excursion
Foray, Retreat, and Escape to the Environment

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    SO BE FREE  21   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brought to you by the new Bryophyte Chapter of the California Native Plant Society!

Friday to Monday, March 18-21, 2016
North Coast Range near Occidental, California
Coordinators: Stephen Rae, David Hutton, Kiamara Ludwig

Founded in 1996, SO BE FREE is a series of West Coast forays started by the Bryolab at UC Berkeley, but open to all botanists. The main focus is on bryophytes, but we also encourage experts on other groups to come along and smell the liverworts.  We welcome specialists and generalists, professionals and amateurs, master bryologists and rank beginners. SO BE FREE is held each spring, somewhere in the Western US, associated with spring break at universities. Evening slide shows and informal talks are presented as well as keying sessions with microscopes. In addition to seeing interesting wild areas and learning new plants, important goals for SO BE FREE include keeping West Coast bryologists (and friends) in touch with each other and teaching beginners. To see pictures and information from past outings, visit the SO BE FREE website at: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/bryolab/Field_Trips.html

One important function of this year's SO BE FREE will be to serve as the first annual meeting of the brand new Bryophyte Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, which was just founded May 30th, 2015.  See: http://bryophyte.cnps.org for details, and to join!

The 2016 SO BE FREE will be held in the North Coast Range approximately 1.5 hour north of San Francisco. Although adjacent Marin County has been the subject of a moss flora, and the Lake County Moss Flora by David Toren will soon be released, Sonoma County has not yet been treated floristically. The county has marine sandstone deposits, volcanics, serpentine, and riparian habitats, supporting a wide range of bryophytes. Participants will see coastal prairie, coast redwood forest, live oak woodland, serpentine chaparral, and chaparral scrub.

Beginners are very welcome to SO BE FREE, and this year we will have a special, expanded workshop session for beginners on Friday afternoon at the start of the event. That session will include slide shows and discussions on bryophyte biology and natural history, and be augmented by mosses and liverworts on display (and under the microscope). Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning we will have field trips to satisfy all participants from neophyte to expert!

See: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/common/images/SBF21_announcement.pdf for more details about housing and meals, and the registration form. Room reservations will be filled on a first come first served basis, soplease register early! Early Registration Deadline is Dec. 15, 2015. Regular registration Deadline is Feb. 19, 2016.

July 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Some lovely liverworts from Chile to grace your desktop this month!

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

June 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Monday, June 01, 2015

Another group of mosses from my bryological adventures in Chile this past winter!

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

May 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Monday, May 04, 2015

Some red Sphagnum mosses mixed in with a succulent vascular plant from my travels to Chile this past winter. Oh to be walking barefoot on the cool wet peat. It would be a great contrast to the warm weather we have been having here in Davis already. Full-blown summer is just around the corner!

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

April 2015 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Thursday, April 02, 2015

Another moss from my adventures in Chile.

I think the peltate/umbrella shape of this moss is really great!

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

October 2014 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Friday, October 03, 2014

Another moss from my August vacation to New York and Connecticut. This one is Atrichum crispum. Unlike other Atrichum species, this one does not have lamellae running down the midrib. It has relatively large translucent leaves and teeth on the edges. The leaf blade is smooth but slightly folded into a V when wet. It is a bit challenging to tell this one from a Miniaceae without capsules. The capsules of Atrichum release spores via a salt-shaker mechanism, whereas the Miniaceae have peristome teeth that move in response to changes in humidity.

Fortunately I had my handy Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians field guide with me to help with this identification.

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 lose a lot of resolution.)

Mosses and the American Dipper

By Jessica M. Budke on Monday, August 04, 2014

Mosses around the edge of the nest

The American Dipper is an aquatic songbird that captures all of its food underwater in fast flowing streams. The other interesting thing about these birds is that they use mosses in their nest construction. Last week I got to see some of them along the Payette River in Idaho. Some nests have mosses around the edge with the main body made from twigs, whereas others are roofed nests completely made of mosses.

A nest made completely of mosses
underneath a bridge.

when I was in Idaho last week.

Below are some additional views from the American Bryological and Lichenological Society fieldtrip into the hills of Idaho.

A view of the Idaho hills

The Payette River

An American Dipper nest was
spotted on this rock jutting out
into the river. I took a photo,
but couldn't spot from the shore.

August 2014 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Sunday, August 03, 2014

I met this moss, Scouleria aquatica, on the bryology field trip before this year's botany conference. In its current state it doesn't look very aquatic. It was growing on the rocks at the edge of the river in a zone that would be completely flooded in the springtime. During that time of the year it grows as a completely submerged aquatic moss. For the other part of the year it is high and dry for months at a time. When dry, they are in a state of suspended animation. Not photosynthesizing or growing at all.

We added a bit of water to this patch and it made a dramatic change to the mosses appearance. The edges are gray, sandy, and dry, whereas the plants in the center are hydrated and green. It is amazing how rapidly mosses can take up water and start photosynthesizing.

August Calendar

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 lose 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.

Turve = Peat in Finnish

By Jessica M. Budke on Wednesday, July 16, 2014

A postdoc pal recently came back from visiting family in Finland and brought me this gift for managing the postdoc seminar series here at UC Davis while she was away.

I love the hand-build soap dish. I have been a potter for the last 8 years, so I don't by pottery very often, especially if it is something I can make myself. So getting some as a gift is quite the treat. And best of all the soap is made from peat moss! I can't see any stems of Sphagnum mixed in the soap, but it does smell a bit like peat moss. I will definitely enjoy using this mossy-filled soap!

Thanks Dr. Kajala!

Translation of the first four lines.
Osmia
Domestic, Hand-made
Peat
Rapeseed Oil Soap

May 2014 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Monday, May 05, 2014

This is another moss from my March trip to Yosemite National Park. Since I found it in a park, I don't have collection to help with the identification and it doesn't look like a species I encountered on the SOBEFREE foray. Thus I don't have an identification for this spectacular little plant.

Does it look familiar to anyone? A pleurocarpous moss growing on granite in the Sierra Nevada mountains. If you have a guess please share it in the comments section. Thanks!

May Desktop Calendar

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 lose 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.

Learning mosses at SOBEFREE

By Jessica M. Budke on Tuesday, April 15, 2014

At the end of March I attended the SOBEFREE foray with amateur and professional bryologists from across California and beyond. I highly recommend attending this foray, especially if you live in California. This year we went to some really great locations in Santa Cruz county and I learned tons of California mosses. The days are spent hiking and collecting mosses with our permits in hand. Then the evenings we all gather around our microscopes to look at the plants and to identify them to species.

With my new skills in hand, I decided to take a look at some of my older photos to see if I could make any identifications. I looked at my desktop calendar from January and now recognize the species. It is Dendroalsia abietina! It is a super common moss on trees in California. When dry the leaves curl downward and may remind you of a clenched fist. When wet, the fronds are splayed out and form an array of small shelves across the trunk. Peek beneath the fronds to find the short sporophytes hiding on the undersides in clusters. I love learning the names of new plants, especially mosses. I often think of it as making new botanical friends.

Being out in the field and looking at plants was such a great change of pace from being in the laboratory. I am hoping that I can make it to the Schofield Bryophyte and Lichen foray up in British Columbia this fall. I don't think the time and location have been announced yet. As soon as I hear I will share it here on the blog.

It would also be nice to stop by the University of British Columbia while up in Canada to meet the chemists I am collaborating with. I have only interacted with them through email and skype. It would be great to see them and their lab setup in person.

Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement about SOBEFREE 2015, which will be held in March somewhere in California. I will most certainly be there next year!

April 2014 Desktop Calendar

By Jessica M. Budke on Tuesday, April 01, 2014

This moss and lichen combo is from my trip last month to Yosemite National Park. I only did photographic collecting and I am still improving my California identifications, thus I was planning to post this calendar without species identifications. But after this weekend's SOBEFREE (a spring outing in California for professionals to head out into the field to observe, collect, and identify bryophytes) I am ready to take a guess.

From the photo this bryophyte appears to be Orthodicranum tauricum. This species may remind you a bit of Dicranum. They both have narrow thin leaves and upright stems. Unlike Dicranum, the leaves of Orthodicranum point in many directions. In Dicranum the leaves are falcate (meaning sickle-shaped) and secund (all pointed in the same direction). It gives Dicranum one of it's common names, broom moss. It looks like the floor has just been swept using a stem and the leaves are now curved and pointing all in the same direction. But I wouldn't recommend it for floor sweeping. It would take way to long to get the chores done.

Anyone have any thoughts on an identification for the lichen? Lichenological books are no longer at my fingertips in my lab here in California, but it would be great to learn the genus or species if someone is familiar.

April Desktop Calendar

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 lose 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.

Zombie Mosses Rise Again

By Jessica M. Budke on Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Rising from the depths, mosses that have been frozen in suspended animation for hundreds of year grow again! You may recall that zombie mosses were in the news last summer, well they are back. In this study, published last week in Current Biology, mosses were dug up from an island in Antarctica and regenerated new plants in the laboratory. Digging up and growing mosses is typically not a news-worthy activity. The amazing thing about these mosses is that they had been buried in the permanently frozen ground (permafrost) for the last 1,500 years, since Roman times.

This story was covered by a variety of news sources. By far my favorite was Jennifer Frazier's coverage for National Geographic. She did a great job of discussing the science and soliciting comments from scientists doing similar research. For an audio clip of the story, I enjoyed the 60 second science podcast from Sophie Bushwick at Scientific American.

Let's put this study in perspective. Mosses can survive freezing. This is a known ability. Mosses are buried beneath the snow during winter in many places across the globe and each spring they thaw and resume growth. This study pushes our knowledge of this phenomenon to the extreme and leads to some questions.

How long can mosses survive frozen and recover? In the National Geographic article, Dr. LaFarge mentions that they have an upcoming study to test whether 50,000 year old mosses can resume growth. There will most definitely be more to come on this topic.

What are the compounds inside moss cells that act as antifreeze, helping them to prepare for and survive freezing? I know that I have read a paper on this somewhere. My memory says that they are called LEA proteins, but I can't recall which paper discussed them relating to mosses.

Can all species of mosses survive this long? Thinking ecologically, my guess would be that mosses from the tropics would not be able to survive frozen for even a single winter, let alone hundreds of years. Whereas, thinking systematically, the mosses that grew from 400 years ago (LaFarge et al 2013) were from four different moss families (Aulacomniaceae, Encalyptaceae, Ditrichaceae, Pottiaceae) and the one in this study is from a different family, the Dicranaceae. From this small sample it looks like surviving frozen for extended periods of time is a feature of many groups of mosses.


Figure S1 from Roads et al. 2014.Chorisodontium aciphyllum moss bank sampled in this study; (a) map of Signy Island indicating the study location; (b) coring the moss bank; (c) surface section of clearly separable gametophytes; (d) fresh-collected section of core from within the permafrost layer.

This supplemental figure from the paper gives you a peek into some of the research methods. The upper right shows the researchers collecting mosses in the field. The lower right is a freshly collected core of mosses. It is amazing how compact the sample appears. It looks like a solid metal rod, but really the bottom left is a pulled-apart version of the bottom right.

I am looking forward to the next tale of zombie mosses from LaFarge and colleagues.

Can 50,000 year old mosses grow again?

March 2014 Desktop Calendar at Yosemite

By Jessica M. Budke on Friday, March 14, 2014

I took some time off this week and went camping in Yosemite National Park. It was my first time there and it was an amazing visit. Granite mountains, boulders covered in mosses, and tough trees clinging to cliffs. Yes, I mentioned rocks three times in the same sentence. Geology is everywhere in Yosemite! If I had grown up in the west, I am convinced I would have been a geologist rather than a botanist. The plant to rock ratio is skewed completely in the opposite direction from the eastern deciduous forests that I grew up surrounded by in the midwest.

The geology of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is an interesting tale. The vast majority of the exposed rock is granite and was formed millions of years ago deep underground from magma. As time passed erosion of the layers above, glaciation, and uplifting exposed the upper layers of these rocks. Giving us literally translated from Spanish the "snowy mountain range" of the Sierra Nevada.

Unfortunately for the water situation in California there was not much snow in the mountains when we visited last weekend. Just the tops retained a light dusting of snow and the vast majority of the trails were open and dry. If you are in the area I would highly recommend a visit to this lovely park. Just beware, Yosemite is one of the most highly visited national parks in the United States and I hear that the summer crowds can be intense, especially in the valley.

Overall it was a much needed vacation and a spectacular piece of nature to visit. I was also very impressed by the accessibility of many of the waterfalls and nature trails. A number of them are paved with flat to mild grades. It is great to see a national park making all of its scenic treasures available to a wide audience!

Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

March Desktop Calendar

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 lose 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.