at least it was unusaul for me. While prowling a rather large sample of moss that was pried from a chunk of rotting wood. I focused on this Sporangium. The operculum had long since detached itself from the specimen and only the peristome remained. However, what caught my eye was a bit of movement. I assumed that one of my micro insects that I normally run across in or among the delicate strands of moss, was the reason for the movement the was inside of the sporangium. So I cranked up the power on the scope a little bit and to my surprise the peristome was opening and closing at approximately the rate of once every second or a fraction thereof. I have never seen a plant of any kind do this with the exception of those videos taken under time lapse photography. To bad this is a still image, it was amazing to observe.
Sporangium of moss showing peristome and sporgenous tissue
Meiji EMZ-13TR w/Sony DSC-W5
An Unusual Thing Happened Here...
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- Wim van Egmond
- Posts: 826
- Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:28 am
- Location: Berkel en Rodenrijs, the Netherlands
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You know I considered that Wim and you could be right. If spores were being released I would not have seen them with a stereomicroscope of course. Considering heat and humidity, I was thinking that if that were the case, wouldn't the sporangiums peristome just have opened and remained open, instead of opening and closing in a cyclic pattern. Quite an odd occurance and I would not know where to begin to search for information on such an event.