Names: Bryophytae
English: Bryophytes, Mosses, Spore plants.
German: Moosen.
Dutch: Mossen.
Clades:
Plants;
Silicon series.
The more near sighted one is, the more adapted to mosses.
TaxonomyThere is no good name for this group. They are part of the
Bryophyta, the land plants. But the
Bryophyta contain also the
Tracheophyta, the vascular plants. This group has not been given a name as it is not a monophyletic group because the
Tracheophyta evolved out of them. On the other hand they are a distinct group.
The provisionary division of Bryophyta is1.
Hydrogen series:
Anthocerotophyta: Hornworts; 14 genera; ± 100 species.
2.
Carbon series:
Marchantiophyta: Liverworts; 9000 species.
3.
Silicon series:
Bryophyta in the resticted sense: Mosses; 13000 species.
Evolution: first
Embryophyta developed from green algae, 400 to 450 million years ago; 16000 species.
Botany: flowers absent; seeds absent; vessels absent; simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems; producing spore capsules which may appear as beak-like capsules borne aloft on thin stalks, for reproduction.
ReproductionMosses usually multiply vegetatively and sexually. There are two generations of sexual reproduction. The spore plant: the sexual organs develop on this; sporophytes grow on fertilized oocytes. The spore plants can be male or female, or even hermaphroditic. The female sex organs are called archegonia, the male sex organs spermatocytes. The spermatocytes are fissured and can move in a water drop to the female egg. The mosses need water for sexual reproduction. Male and female plants must grow near. Rain drops splash on the moss polster, there are the spermatocytes in it. Sometimes male and female plants are on a plant. Since sexual reproduction does not always work so well, mosses can also reproduce vegetatively; sprouts and leaflets can regenerate again. Mosses have two types: sex plants (gametophytes) and spore plants (sporophytes). The sporophyte always grows on the moss plant. What is perceived in the mosses is the sex-plant. In the ferns the spore-plant is perceived, that is, exactly the reverse.
Behavior of mossesMoose reacts immediately to moisture, in some species this is very fast, so that they look immediately different, more beautiful, in some species this reaction is slower. There are also species that are water repellent, which is in the species that grow in moist spots.
Mosses can live quite long in dry or other adverse conditions; it can take years before they die. Some mosses can alive after having been covered by a glacier for two centuries. It is as if they go into a state of hibernation, they look dead but aren’t. They are strong survivors, but not by fighting the circumstances, but letting them be and withdraw.
They can not be composted. They have little nutritive contents, no pests, are not eaten. Only sometimes birds eat the spur capsules. There are no nutrients that are stored, they are very modest and take what comes from the atmosphere; they do not take nutrients from the soil, only from the air, e.g. also fine dust. They do not interfere; They tend to live day by day, as things come.
Mosses have no roots, but rhizoids, that can adhere to soil, stone or trees. They don’t subtract food from soil, but from the air and the moisture that comes on them. So they can live on very little, they don’t need much to live. They can be used to clean the air form fine dust.
Mosses have no or hardly taste or smell.
Mosses are easily overlooked. they seem uninteresting, also for botanists: no one was interested in mosses, so Sauer took the subject.
Mosses also live in communities, of their own species, but also mixed with other species in ecosystems, moss communities. One species will tend to become the dominant one after some time. They can sometimes be expelled from other, more powerful plants.
Mosses can populate extreme habitats, they are pioneering plants when it comes to growing habitats like loamy soil, rocky grounds, or burnt soil.
Mosses are no poisonous mosses.
Frullania dilatata can trigger allergic reactions in the Mediterranean.
There is only one (epi-) parasitic liverwort genus, Cryptothallus, which is closely related to the genus Aneura. These mosses parasitize on a pillar fungus using mycorrhiza on another plant. The local representative is called Cryptothallus mirabilis and grows in bogs.