only moss in the building

Moss in the Sylvania Wilderness, Michigan

Hey what do you guys think is in there…my money’s on more moss

The best thing about moss is how it can change the scale of what you’re seeing. This is not just a horizontal wooden post filling with moss. It’s also a rugged cliff face just starting to be colonized by scrub. It’s like using that powdered green stuff in scale models to look like grass. Idk, moss is cool.

Pictures from my trip to moss heaven (the Ozarks in northern Arkansas). Side note, to whoever graffitied this giant, beautiful mossy stone by scraping away moss. Rude! Kind of iconic, but mostly rude!

Moss likes to grow perfectly around obstacles. I like to take pictures of moss growing perfectly around obstacles. In that way, I’m in a symbiotic relationship with moss, don’t you agree?

See the middle right photo for scale on the first snail and the slug; bottom right for scale on the last snail (EVEN TINIER THAN THE OTHERS YOU MAY NOTICE). Magnified pictures are always 14x mag through my loupe.

Illinois moss! 14x mag!!

Moss at 14x mag and bonus dandelion in upper left! Upper right is one species, while bottom left is mixed. You can really see how thin and translucent the leaves are in both of those. Bottom right is all the same species, but half has died.

Mushroom gills and various mosses! 14x mag :)

Moss lives in the boundaries. It fills the niche that most vascular plants can’t because it can huddle close to the ground and be walked over without being crushed. But if it goes undisturbed long enough, those hidden patches can grow beyond the height limit of the niche they started in. There’s probably something inspirational there idk

Guess what. It’s moss. 14x mag, tried to pic some of my photos that show multiple species cohabitating (or some lichen mixed in). Please enjoy in these trying times.

Winter mosses 14x mag! Feat. snow

The reason that a lot of moss seems to glow from within when you magnify it, near as I can tell, is that each leaf is one cell thick. So it's got this perfect level of translucency when wet that just makes it look like a little baby fern cut from a glowing gemstone.

These are from winter. I have a huge backlog. No magnification on any of these. The two pics with all those stalks coming out of the moss are putting up setae! That is a sign of moss that is sexually reproducing. They raise their setae (stalks) up high enough so that the spores (contained in the capsule at the end of the stalk) can be scattered by wind. Super cool!!!!!

Moss is poikilohydric, meaning that it depends on the moisture of its environment to regulate its water content, unlike vascular plants. This also means that some species of moss can be completely dried out (as long as they're not also super hot) and then revived days, weeks, or even decades later. Water bears are famous for drying out and then reviving. They also thrive in moss! They work together perfectly, through similar environmental stresses. Just imagine a little water bear traversing a moss forest...beautiful, stunning. I love them.