21/04/2024 - A Sunday stroll to the bottle bank to get rid of the evidence. On the way back we started looking at tiny things. A 20 min walk turned into 7 hrs. Peaceful, slow and even the rain held off. A good day.
My new favourite tiny thing - Common Liverwort. This stuff is fantastic. Like something out of a 50s sci-fi film.
Two close up photos - Reproductive structures known as gametophores. Male gametophores on left, female gametophores right.
A whole miniature canyon world emerges in the cracks of the dried-up lake mud... Fringed Heartwort (Ricciocarpos natans) grows in shallow water and damp silt. Despite its appearance, it's not a moss or lichen but a liverwort. #Wetlands#Liverworts#Mosstodon#LichenSubscribe
There are lookalikes of moss, but sometimes they are liverworts!
Here is a closeup of two liverworts in one photo, found them growing together on a rock face:
Tumid Notchwort (Lophozia ventricosa) and Grove Earwort (Scapania nemorea).
Something for #Mosstodon today although it's not a moss at all but just as cool! Like mosses, liverworts don't have a vascular system and spend most of their lifecycle as gametophytes with a single set of chromosomes. If we humans did that, our eggs and sperm would grow into independent organisms who then would do the mating and growing babies instead of us.