In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, fungi and protozoa.
Alternation of generations is the predominant type of life cycle in plants and algae. In plants both phases are multicellular: the haploid sexual phase – the gametophyte – alternates with a diploid asexual phase – the sporophyte.
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophytasensu stricto. Bryophyta may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hornworts. Mosses typically form dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple leaves that are generally only one cell thick, attached to a stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited role in conducting water and nutrients. Although some species have conducting tissues, these are generally poorly developed and structurally different from similar tissue found in vascular plants. Mosses do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes with unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing spores. They are typically 0.2–10 cm (0.1–3.9 in) tall, though some species are much larger. Dawsonia, the tallest moss in the world, can grow to 50 cm (20 in) in height. There are approximately 12,000 species.
The Marchantiophyta are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information.
Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss. Accumulations of Sphagnum can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16 to 26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions.
Takakia is a genus of two species of mosses known from western North America and central and eastern Asia. The genus is placed as a separate family, order and class among the mosses. It has had a history of uncertain placement, but the discovery of sporophytes clearly of the moss-type firmly supports placement with the mosses.
Buxbaumia is a genus of twelve species of moss (Bryophyta). It was first named in 1742 by Albrecht von Haller and later brought into modern botanical nomenclature in 1801 by Johann Hedwig to commemorate Johann Christian Buxbaum, a German physician and botanist who discovered the moss in 1712 at the mouth of the Volga River. The moss is microscopic for most of its existence, and plants are noticeable only after they begin to produce their reproductive structures. The asymmetrical spore capsule has a distinctive shape and structure, some features of which appear to be transitional from those in primitive mosses to most modern mosses.
Plant reproduction is the production of new offspring in plants, which can be accomplished by sexual or asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction produces offspring by the fusion of gametes, resulting in offspring genetically different from either parent. Asexual reproduction produces new individuals without the fusion of gametes, resulting in clonal plants that are genetically identical to the parent plant and each other, unless mutations occur.
Ceratodon purpureus is a dioicous moss with a color ranging from yellow-green to red. The height amounts to 3 centimeters. It is found worldwide, mainly in urban areas and next to roads on dry sand soils. It can grow in a very wide variety of habitats, from polluted highway shoulders and mine tailings to areas recently denuded by wildfire to the bright slopes of Antarctica. Its common names include redshank, purple forkmoss, ceratodon moss, fire moss, and purple horn toothed moss.
Aulacomnium palustre, the bog groove-moss or ribbed bog moss, is a moss that is nearly cosmopolitan in distribution. It occurs in North America, Hispaniola, Venezuela, Eurasia, and New Zealand. In North America, it occurs across southern arctic, subboreal, and boreal regions from Alaska and British Columbia to Greenland and Quebec. Documentation of ribbed bog moss's distribution in the contiguous United States is probably incomplete. It is reported sporadically south to Washington, Wyoming, Georgia, and Virginia.
Splachnum sphaericum, also known as pinkstink dung moss, is a species of moss. This species occurs in North America. It also occurs in upland Britain, where it is known as round-fruited collar-moss and in north temperate and boreal regions of Europe. Its habitat is bog and wet heathland where it grows on herbivore dung. This and other Splachnum species are entomophilous. The sporophytes, which are generally coloured red or black, produce an odour of carrion that is attractive to flies and the spores are dispersed by flies to fresh dung.
Protostropharia semiglobata, commonly known as the dung roundhead, the halfglobe mushroom, or the hemispheric stropharia, is an agaric fungus of the family Strophariaceae. A common and widespread species with a cosmopolitan distribution, the fungus produces mushrooms on the dung of various wild and domesticated herbivores. The mushrooms have hemispherical straw yellow to buff-tan caps measuring 1–4 cm (0.4–1.6 in), greyish gills that become dark brown in age, and a slender, smooth stem 3–12 cm (1.2–4.7 in) long with a fragile ring.
Hypnodendron comosum, commonly known as palm moss or palm tree moss, is a ground moss which can be divided into two varieties: Hypnodendron comosum var. comosum and Hypnodendron comosum var. sieberi. Both Hypnodendron varieties most commonly grow in damp locations in the temperate and tropical rainforests of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania in southern Australia and in New Zealand.
Splachnaceae is a family of mosses, containing around 70 species in 6 genera. Around half of those species are entomophilous, using insects to disperse their spores, a characteristic found in no other seedless land plants.
Pogonatum urnigerum is a species of moss in the family Polytrichaceae, commonly called urn haircap. The name comes from "urna" meaning "urn" and "gerere" meaning "to bear" which is believed to be a reference made towards the plant's wide-mouthed capsule. It can be found on gravelly banks or similar habitats and can be identified by the blue tinge to the overall green colour. The stem of this moss is wine red and it has rhizoids that keep the moss anchored to substrates. It is an acrocarpous moss that grows vertically with an archegonium borne at the top of each fertilized female gametophyte shoot which develops an erect sporophyte.
Climacium dendroides, also known as tree climacium moss, belongs in the order Hypnales and family Climaciaceae, in class Bryopsida and subclass Bryidae. It is identified as a "tree moss" due to its distinctive morphological features, and has four species identified across the Northern Hemisphere. The species name "dendroides" describes the tree-like morphology of the plant, and its genus name came from the structure of the perforations of peristome teeth. This plant was identified by Weber and Mohr in 1804. They often have stems that are around 2-10 cm tall and growing in the form of patches, looking like small palm-trees. They have yellow-green branches at the tip of stems. The leaves are around 2.5-3 mm long, with rounder stem leaves and pointier branch leaves. Their sporophytes are only abundant in late winter and early spring, and appears as a red-brown shoot with long stalk and cylindrical capsules.
Fissidens limbatus commonly known as Herzog's pocket-moss, is a moss in the family Fissidentaceae. This species is found growing in high elevations in tropical America in addition to the US, Mexico and Canada. Montagne first collected F. crispus in 1838.
Splachnum, also known as dung moss or petticoat moss, is a genus of moss that is well known for its entomophily. It commonly grows on patches of dung or decomposing animal matter.
Buxbaumia viridis, also known as the green shield-moss, is a rare bryophyte found sporadically throughout the northern hemisphere. The gametophyte of this moss is not macroscopically visible; the large, distinct sporophyte of B. viridis is the only identifying structure of this moss. This moss can be found singularly or in small groups on decaying wood, mostly in humid, sub-alpine to alpine Picea abies, Abies alba, or mixed tree forests. This moss is rare and conservation efforts are being made in most countries B. viridis is found in.
Syntrichia latifolia, formerly Tortula latifolia, and commonly known as water screw-moss, is a species of moss belonging to the family Pottiaceae. Syntrichia species differ from members of Tortula due to synapomorphic leaf qualities, such as different basal and distal cells, as well as different costal cross sections where Tortula has an abaxial epidermis and Syntrichia lacks one.
