Andrew's
Moss Site
The
main part of this site is a collection of photographs of mosses.
There are about 375 moss photos, and more are being added all
the time.
Yesterday, we had an excursion to the woods next to the Oostereng
arboretum just Northeast of Wageningen. We had beautiful weather
with low autumn sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees.

The most spectacular spots were the roots of old trees that had
fallen some years ago and were now covered in various mosses.
Because they are raised up above the ground, they are not covered in
leaf litter, and the remaining soil around the dead roots keeps it
nice and damp.

They not only had common species like the Polytrichum commune
in the above photo, but also, for example, great swathes of Pogonatum
in the lower area.They didn't have capsules, so we were not sure
which species it was in the field. The dull blue-grey colour of the
leaves was a dead give-away for it being some sort of Pogonatum
in any case. Some of the leaves had been nibbled away by some small
creature, which is quite unusual.

Next to the above tree stump, there were some rounded moss cushions
on the ground. In the field, I didn't look so closely and thought
they were Leucobryum. When I first moved to this area, about
30 years ago, that was not uncommon. However, these days you see it
much less often, and indeed as soon as I saw the photo I realised
that it was in fact a nice hummock of Dicranum scoparium
with its distinctive curved leaves.

During the excursion, we saw two of the three Rhytidiadelphus
species. Of course, R. squarrosus is a common lawn
species that you see all over the place. But we also saw R.
loreus which was in fairly open, damp, youngish woodland. Both
R. loreus and R. triquetus are both quite uncommon,
rare in some places, though apparently they are more common than
they used to be due to improved woodland management practices. In
the field we thought that the lower photo was triquetus, but
it turned out not to me. However, later some people went back and
did find that species growing nearby.


The damper places also had Kindbergia praelongum, which
you often see, but it is always very attractive, with its finely
branched leaves. Like Rhytidiadelphus, its stem leaves are
much larger than the branch leaves. Here Atricum undulatum
is growing through the Kindbergia and if you look carefully
you can even see the undulations on its leaves.

Some of the trees had epiphytes growing on them. That
was mostly the ubiquitous Hynum cupressiforme, but there
were also some more interesting patches, like the thallose liverwort
Metzgeria furcata. Here, it was growing on the bark of a
beech tree.

The rarest moss that we saw was probably Ptilium
crista-castrensis. That is not only rare (round here at
least, it is not uncommon in Northern Scotland), but exceptionally
beautiful. The photo below doesn't really do it justice, as it i
just one stem laid on the ground. That is because we did not want to
disturb its habitat by the whole group trampling around it, so one
of us plucked a few stems so that the rest of us, who stayed on the
path, could admire it. When I got back, I discovered that I did not
yet have a picture on this site (see here) ,
so that was a bonus.
All in all, it was a great excursion and the four hours flew by. If
you live near Wageningen and would like to join, you can find out
more here.
More moss photos? Click here.
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