New moss species for the hobby?

[Robert]

Hi,
since a few months I visit a pond near my hometown Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Westpommerania, Germany. In this pond, which was created by the commercial disassembly of peat a century ago, I found a pretty large moss species. The fronds are very large, some are more than a half meter long. They grow in shallow water around the year. In winter new growth is visible. It grows only a few centimeter a year, so these large frond must be several years old. You can find hundreds of kilograms of this moss in this pond, although it is no peat moss. In the whole pond and its shores I couldn't find any peat moss. The pH is around 7 which should have something to do with our rock hard groundwaters and the lack of peat. The dKH is between 12 and 17.

The moss has about 1cm wide fronds. The leaflets are quit large and about a half centimeter long. Here are some pictures of the moss in its pond:





Here are some pictures of the moss itself:





For several months I could keep it in my tanks. It grows slowly and it became smaller. The fronds are now about 0.5cm wide. But never appeared a capsule. I also couldn't find one in this pond till a few days ago. Here it is:



Maybe this moss is just a subspecies or variant of willow moss. There are similarities and the growth is similar. But the appearance of the leaflets is very different. Here is a comparison, willow moss from a nearby brook:



I keep both for more than a half year in my tanks but they didn't change their appearance much. They became a bit smaller but that's all.

Does somebody seen this moss before? Any idea about the genus or even the species? I couldn't find any ID for it. At the moment I have some collected fronds from this pond with capsules. But notice that it is full of little insects, worms, crustaceans etc. . It take me weeks or months to get rid of them without harming the moss drastically.

best regards
Robert

[RonWill]

Robert,
I'll hazard a guess that the new plant you found appears to be spaghnum moss.

[Robert]

Hi Ronnie,
it is no Spaghnum species for sure. I know our local Spaghnum species and they have a soft stem which rods at one end. This moss has a stiff dark brown stem like willow moss and it does not rod, even after years. In my opinion it could be a variant of Fontinalis antipyretica or another species of the same genus.

Peat moss show a totally different growth. The produce mainly one stem which grows continuously and has only a few branches. They can't survive for a long time completely submersed. They prefer to grow semi-submersed. Here are two pictures of Sphagnum squarrosum:





This is one of the more common Saghnum species in my region.

best regards
Robert