Mosses and the men who love them (Part 5)

[hwchoy]

I heard a rumour which I can't confirm if it's true but it seems like a hobbyist loved the moss so much he offered Bioplast $500 for the piece of rock with the Fissidens but they refused to sell

1) I think I need to retoactively charge Loh
2) I need to hit the high end auction house soon

erm… haha unfortunately that offer is for the strange 17th species of Fissidens in Singapore

[strung_0ut]

Timebomb wrote:

Besides the Singapore Moss, we now suspect the Weeping Moss appears in many forms too.

Does this mean that despite whatever conditions in a tank, the structure of the moss depends on its stage?

Regards,
Dennis

[budak]

From this site:

"Extensive phenotypic plasticity - Studies have shown that bryophytes tend to have very high amounts of morphological and physiological plasticity. This may compensate for their demonstrated low levels of ecotypic differentiation (perhaps due to haploidy)."

There's some irony in that a moss's lack of genotypic variance (i.e. the genomes of individual members of the same moss species tend to exhibit a lesser degree of difference/variation, compared to the case with vascular plant species) results in a high degree of phenotypic diversity.

I think several factors probably affect a moss's appearance, from its place of origin, water, temperature, pH, hardness, dissolved solids, O2, CO2, light, stability of environment, presence of other plants, etc.... without controlled experiments, your guess is probably as good as mine. It's just funny to me that people can't seem to see (and get frustrated) that a plant or moss grows and varies according to its needs and in-built design constraints, NOT according to a hobbyist's whim. And of course, I find curious the apparent need of many people to positively 'know' that their moss is "xmas" or "taiwan" or "Singapore" etc.... moss when visual keys are just an approximation (adding to that, they seem to want to pigeon-hole any moss they find under the bare handful of species they know about).

[whuntley]

Ever play around with fractals?

Moss leaf shapes are almost identical to some of the simple patterns that can be generated by fractals. Change a parameter slightly, and the "leaf" shape changes. Probably environmental factors can make similar changes to a plant that has such simple basic design.

Wright

[hwchoy]

Ever play around with fractals?

Moss leaf shapes are almost identical to some of the simple patterns that can be generated by fractals. Change a parameter slightly, and the "leaf" shape changes. Probably environmental factors can make similar changes to a plant that has such simple basic design.

Wright

just like this fern frond…

[strung_0ut]

Thank you guys ! I've been doing a lot of changes lately.

Regards,
Dennis