Diario de homeformosses

2012 February 1 16:45

Location: the patch of forest directly across from Wild Currant Route, steps north from the bus stop, just south of Rock Maple.

GPS 47* 04' 32.52" N 122* 58' 03.42 W Elevation 165ft

Weather: overcast with blue patches in the sky. Crisp. Less than or equal to 45F.

Habitat: fragment of ACMA, THPL forest. POMU, MANE, VAOV understory.

Species observed: Porella navicularis and a moss with crispate, papyraceous, appressed leaves growing from a fallen ALRU branch.

Notes: Cars and people are audible all around. A few bird calls. Sad chirping for one and frenetic talking for another. There is downed debris everywhere from the snow breakage. There's a gigantic maple with large patches of broken moss cover on its trunk below and above eye level. Is it pollution from the road or people/animals picking at it? This would be a good site to test pollution because the Wild Currant Rt. bus stop is less than 30ft to the SW. See photos.

Location: 75yards NE of the intersection of Driftwood Rd and Overhulse Rd and 15yds N of the same intersection.
GPS 47*04'36.64" N 122*58'07.98 W Elevation 163ft.

Weather: clear blue skies. Less than or equal to 50F.

Habitat: altered landscape of an apartment complex.

Insects: none observed. People, cars, and an occasional bird in the background.

Mosses: I can't tell if the species that is growing in the grass is the same as is growing in the sidewalk. The sidewalk moss looks like it's making attempts at pinnate branching and the moss in the grass is almost all pinnately branched. Both are similar in color, but the sidewald moss has a distinct gold cast. Both are pleurocarps.

Next to Overhulse Road, there is a moss that has all but taken over the grass near a giant, non-native maple. I thought this moss was an acrocarp, on first glance, but, after pulling up a few strands, I cant tell if it's an acrocarp with innovations or a pleurocarp with few branches. The moss has a distinctly red stem. See photos.

Question: I wonder if the moss that's taking over the grass might be a successful native? It doesn't look like a super-tough Bryum spp.

Location: N Bridge. Parking Lot F Forest. Off the bridge on the N trail.
GPS: 47*05'41.87N 122"58'37.23" W Elevation:121ft

Weather: Overcast. It had been sunny earlier.

Habitat: Stream. ACMA, THPL dominates. Downed woody debris laying across the stream.

Species: No insects observed. I've seen a dog and a few people.

Within 50 yds of the stream, there is a new liverwort that I haven't seen before. It grows on ACMA boles, enmeshed with a feathery, pinnately-branching moss. The moss is producing sporophytes at this time. I the liverwort again next to the stream where it forms rounded "scales/shingles." I assume this is because of the extra humidity. See photo.

South of the bridge, there is a stream-bank micro-habitat at the base of a THPL, where the stream has eroded a bit under the THPL root ball. I wonder how long the tree has before it falls over. A week ago, I collected a moss with appressed leaves that are in one plane. I ruined my sample before I keyed the moss out, so I came back here to for a little more.

This moss habitat is shielded from S light by fallen, well-decomposed, downed-woody-debris. The logs are't falling apart yet, but they don't have bark any more and moss communities are well-established on them. The community I'm looking at has my mystery moss, L. acanthoneuron, and two of the larger-leaved mosses that I don't know yet. There is also what I think is another, appressed-leaved, leaves-in-one-plane moss, with a lot of new growing tips, growing right above the water. However, it turns out to be the mystery moss that I've already collected that is just more robust because of its close position to the water. See photo.

Question: I wonder what will happen to this moss community when the THPL falls over.