Vegetation - Spores and Seeds? #3
Mosses, Horsetails and Ferns
Compiled by Keith Hunt The following is taken from "ABC's of Nature - a family answer book" by Reader's digest 1984. All capital words are mine throughout for emphasis. QUOTE THE DIMINUTIVE MOSSES What are mosses? ......They are members of a group of plants called BRYOPHYTES, which also include the less familiar LIVERWORTS and HORNWORTS. Mosses are generally small, standing no more than a few inches high or creeping flat across the ground and other surfaces.....most mosses lack any specialized tissue for transporting food or water from one part of the plant to another. Because they have no such "plumbing" system, they are not considered to have true roots, stems, or leaves. The "roots" of a moss, for example, serve only to hold it in place, not to bring water and nutrients up from the ground; the whole surface of the plant absorbs these vital substances. And the "leaves," except at their midribs, are usually only a single cell thick. Nor do mosses produce any FLOWERS or SEEDS. Instead they are generally topped by grainlike little SPORES capsules on long slender stalks. The spores germinate into plants that produce eggs and sperm. The fertilized eggs, in turn, give rise to a new generation of spore-producing plants. And so the cycle continues. HOW DO MOSSES REPRODUCE? The two-stage life cycle of a moss plant begins with a spore that spills from the spore capsule of a parent plant. The spore herminates into a branching green thread, and buds along its length sprout into new moss plants. In many species some of these grow into male, sperm-producing plants, others into female, egg-producing plants. when they are mature, a sperm cell from a male plant swims through a film of dew or other moisture to a nearby female plant and fertilizes an egg cell. The fertilized egg then grows into a spore-producing plant - slender stalk topped by a spore capsule - that remains attached to the parent plant. When spores are released from the capsule, the two-stage cycle begins again. WHERE DO MOSSES GROW? Although they may seen delicate and fragile, mosses are actually quite tough and hardy. Various finds can be found from the shores of the Arctic Ocean through the tropics to parts of Antarctica. Some manage to survive in deserts and on sunbaked rocks, while other live in bogs and streams. But most mosses prefer damp, shaded locations in temperate climates. In forests they frequently form thick cushiony mats that completely cover rotting logs and the woodland floor. Some mosses require specialized living conditions. Certain species grow only on acid soil, others only on alkaline. Still others, the so-called copper mosses, live only in the vicinity of copper and furnish valuable clues to the presence of ore deposits. Another specialized type, luminous moss, is restricted to caves, recesses under the roots of trees, and similar dimly lit places. Equipped with cells shaped like tiny lenses, it focuses what little light there is on its food-making chlorophyll granules. In the near darkness of the places where it grows, luminous moss seems to glow with a golden-green light. It really shines by reflecting light, not its own. IS IT TRUE THAT MOSS GROWS ONLY ON THE NORTH SIDE OF TREES? Folklore tells of many a person, lost in the woods, who found his way to safety by using moss as a kind of natural compass indicating north. And in fact, moss does TEND to frow more luxuriantly on the north side of tree trunks, for that is usually the shadier, moister side. But other factors, such as the presence or absence of nearby trees, also influence the growth of moss, and it can be found on any and all sides of trees. so while the moss on tree trunks frequently gives a clue to general direction, it is far from fool-proof "compass." CAN MOSSES ENDURE DROUGHT? Although mosses are moisture-loving plants, most kinds can survive long severe dry spells. For one thing, they can store large quantities of water in their cells and draw on this reserve during the first few days or weeks of drought. Then, when this water is almost gone, they simply go dormant. Their leaves curl up, so that no remaining moisture evaporates. The whole plant shrivels, turns brown, and looks completely dead. But the spark of life remains. As soon as the rains return, the plants become green and fresh again, almost overnight, and resume their vital processes. WHEN IS A MOSS NOT A MOSS? Down through the ages, many a plant has come to be called a moss even though it is not related to mosses at all.....Reindeer moss, another lichen, is a mainstay in the diets of reindeer and caribou in the far northern lands. And club mosses, a whole group of plants that often look mossy indeed, are actually only very distantly related to mosses. But the least mosslike of all in the family tree of plants is spanish moss, which hangs in greyish festoons from trees in the southeastern United States. Though its blossoms are minute and seldom noticed, it is in fact a flowing plant of the pineapple family. ARE MOSSES USEFUL TO MAN? Mosses play an important role in forming soil in which other plants can take root. These low-growing plants protect bare soil from erosion, and when they decay they too turn into components of soil. But in the most part, mosses have seldom been of great importance to people. Some kinds have been traditionally used for stuffing mattresses. Just as many birds line their nests with moss, so in Lapland, mothers use it to line their infants' cradles. In North America, pioneers employed moss to chink the cracks in their log cabins. And in Japan, gardens are sometimes planted with nothing but mosses. Today, however, the only mosses with widespread commercial value are the many kinds of sphagnum, or peat moss. Most gardeners are well acquainted with sphagnum....(sphagnum can absorb 20 times its own weight in water)....Among the mosses that thrive in water, sphagnum can fill in entire ponds and transform them into bogs. In time the sphagnum in bogs is compressed into peat. When cut into slabs and dried, peat makes a good fuel that burns with some smoke. It was once widely used in northern Europe...... CLUB MOSSES AND HORSETAILS How do club mosses differ from true mosses? The creeping evergreen woodland plants commonly known as ground pine and running cedar are familiar examples of club mosses. Although they are neither conifers nor mosses, some do indeed resemble miniature pines and cedars, and others are decidedly mosslike in appearance. But unlike true mosses, club mosses and their relatives - spike mosses, quilworts, and horsetails - all have true leaves, stems, and roots. The leaves often are narrow, scalelike, and densely packed around the stems, giving many species their mossy look. And unlike the true mosses and other simpler plants, club mosses and their kin are equipped with special water-conducting tissues - a vascular, or circulatory system. Well-developed bundles of tubelike cells transport water and nutrients from the roots to leaves; similar sets of cells distribute food throughout the plants. DO ALL CLUB MOSSES CREEP ACROSS THE GROUND? In temperate climates club mosses are primarily low-growing plants of moist, shaded woodlands. Typical, branching stems spread across the ground, sending up leafy stalks all along their length.... But the majority of club mosses live in the tropics and subtropics, where many of them have adopted a different life-style. Instead of sprawling on the ground, they cling to the trunks and limbs of trees, their roots anchored in debris that has collected in crevices and crannies. The closely related spike mosses, also mainly tropical, are more varied. Some look mossy, others resemble miniature ferns; some creep, some stand erect, and others form filmy mats..... WHAT ARE THE CLUBS ON CLUB MOSSES? The upright stems of many club mosses are topped with slender little clublike structures that account for the plants' common name....The clubs, known as strobili, are actually SPORE-bearing structures. ....(In species without strobili, the spore cases are scattered along the stems). When the spores are ripe, they are released and blown about by the wind......The highly flammable golden "dust" known as vegetable sulphur, is collected for medical purposes and also for use in manufacturing fireworks. DO THE SPORES SPROUT INTO NEW PLANTS? The club mosses we see on the forest floor do not grow DIRECTLY from spores. When the spores germinate, each one develops into a diminutive plants, called a prothallus, that looks nothing like the parent plant. In most tropical species, the prothalli are so small that they are rarely noticed....The prothalli of cool-climate species are larger, sometimes as big as grapes. But they too go unnoticed, for they usually develop underground...... At maturity, sex organs develop on the prothallus, some producing male reproductive cells, others female cells. Fertilization takes place when a male cell, or sperm, swims through a film of water and unites with a female cell, or egg. The fertilized egg then develops into a green spore-producing plant. In most tropical species, all this happens within a matter of months. Temperate-region kinds develop more slowly. Frequently two or three years, pass before the spores even germinate. Then 10 years or more may elapse while the prothallus matures, leading its hidden life underfoot. WHAT ARE HORSETAILS? Some two dozen or so species of the strange and simple plants called horsetails thrive in waste places around much of the globe. Most are less than 3 feet tall, although one vinelike horsetail of the American tropics occasionally reaches heights of 30 feet..... Many of the horsetails have cone-like spore-producing structures at the tips of the stems. Others send up special-producing shoots up that die back after the spores are shed. The spores like those of the club mosses, germinate into inconspicuous prothalli, when then produce the familiar spore-bearing plants. WHY ARE SOME HORSETAILS CALLED SCOURING RUSHES? The stems of many horsetails have a gritty feel, the result of silica deposits in some of the cells. (Silica is the hard, glassy mineral of which quartz and sand grains are composed). In one species, an unbranched type that grows in moist places, so much silica is present that the plant has earned the name SCOURING RUSH. In the days before chemical cleaners were invented, these plants were used for scouring pots and pans and scrubbing wooden floors. A few craftsmen still rely on horsetails when a gentle fine sanding is required, as in the making of wooden musical instruments. And the "rushes" continue to serve as an ingredient in a few abrasive powders. Except for these incidental uses, however, horsetails have few practical applications today. ARE FOSSIL FORMS VALUABLE? ......Some of the long-extinct horsetails were some 50 feet tall. The ancestors of today's lowly club mosses were even bigger, with trunks up to 100 feet and 3 feet in diameter. Their spore-bearing cones were up to a foot long, and some had leaves more than three feet long...... Yet without them, life on earth would be far different from what it is today. The remains of the lush, long-gone forests accumulated in thick layers of organic matter. Subsequently buried beneath younger sedimentary rocks, they were compressed into tremendous deposits of COAL. FABULOUS FERNS Are ferns very common? To many people, ferns are familiar only as house and garden plants, and as sprays of greenery that florists include with bundles of cut flowers. Or they may be acquainted with one or two lacy-leaved types that grow in damp, dark woodlands. In fact ferns are a widespread group of plants including some 10,000 species. They are most abundant in warm, moist tropical regions, but some range northward into the tundra, other grow in rocky places, and a few even live in water. They range in size from kinds so small that they resemble carpets of moss to others that are as tall as trees. HOW DO FERNS GROW? Although ferns are among the many plants that lack flowers, they do possess true leaves, stems, and roots. The stems usually go unnoticed, however, since they generally trail underground. The visible part of the plant consists only of leaves, or fronds, rising at intervals from the underground stem..... In cool climates the leaves of most ferns die back in autumn and are replaced by the new growth the following spring. In warmer regions, many species grow as epiphytes attached to the trunks and branches of trees and remain green all year round. WHAT ARE THE DOTS ON FERN FRONDS? Many a plant lover has been alarmed at the discovery of small dark spots on the undersides of the leaves of a favorite fern. Far from the result of some disease or insect pest, however, the spots are actually clusters of SPORE sacs. In some species, the spots, called sori, are bare; in others, each is covered by a little flap of tissue. Depending on the type of fern, the sori may be round, curved, lang and slender, or take a variety of other shapes..... HOW DO FERNS REPRODUCE? Whatever the arrangement of a fern's spore sacs, their ultimate fate is the same: when the spores are mature, the sacs burst open and scatter the dustlike granules to the wind. Those that land in favorable places germinate into small, flat, usually heart-shaped plants called prothalli. Most are less than half an inch long. Like those of club mosses and horsetails, fern prothalli produce male and female sex cells - sperms and eggs. When they are mature, the sperms unite with the eggs. And from each united egg a new spore-producing fern plant grows. Fern also multiply by other means. New clusters of leaves may rise from the spreading underground stems, and in this way large colonies may be produced. Some ferns reproduce tiny bulb-like growths on the underside of their leaflets. At maturity, the bulblets fall off and grow into a new plant. And the walking fern gets its name from its habit of producing new plantlets at the tips of its lance-shaped leaves; the leaves arch down and touch the soil, permitting the plantlets to take root and so "walk" away. CAN ANY FERNS FLOAT? Among the least fernlike of ferns are the several kinds that live in water. Some - the water clovers, with their shamrock-shaped fronds - grow rooted in the mud in shallow ponds. Others have dispensed with roots entirely and simply float on the surface of lakes, ponds, and sluggish streams. One of the floaters, water spangles, has rows of nearly circled leaves, and carpets the water with masses of greenery. Others, the mosquito ferns, have even tinier leaves. But they form such dense mats that they have sometimes been used for MOSQUITO CONTROL. The leaves grow so profusely that mosquito larvae are unable to break through to the surface to breathe. The plants are even considered pests in some areas; the choking growths of the midget ferns are sometimes so dense that they interfere with boating, fishing, and other uses of waterways. WHAT ARE FERN TREES? Ferns as big as trees were common in the swampy forests that flourished.....millions of years ago. Some had trunks several feet in diameter and as much as 100 feet tall. Topped by crowns of lacy fronds up to 15 feet long, they looked much like present-day palms. Their dead remains, along with those of the giant club mosses and horsetails, were compacted into the coal deposits we mine today. Similar-looking tree ferns still survive in many parts of the world, especially in warm, moist tropical rain forests. Some of them reach heights of 70 feet or more, and are the largest of all living ferns. In places like the Hawaiian Islands, these giants sometimes grow in solid stands...... ARE ALL FERNS FEATHERY? Although we tend to think of ferns as delicate, lacy, featherlike plants, they come with a surprising assortment of leaf form. The stout fronds of the royal fern, topped by beadlike clusters of spore sacs, sometimes grow six feet tall. The delicate Venus maidenhair fern bears broad leaflets on much-branched fronds. The fronds of the hart's tongue fern, in contrast, are straplike and leathery. Many others are even less fernlike. Curly grass ferns are slender and grasslike; some of the climbing ferns are vinelike and look remarkably like ivy. The tropical staghorn fern has fronds that are branched and look something like antlers. Among the aquatic ferns, the water clovers have floating fronds divided into four leaflets and look like four-leaved clovers.... END QUOTES Ferns, Horsetails, all were created for a purpose by the Eternal in the design of the vegetation on this earth, but ferns and horsetails were never mean by God for mankind to go and gather from the forests, and lakes, and bogs, and cut down and chop up and use for food or mix among other vegetation that was created for us to eat, as part of our salad bowl. So also with mosses. God never intended for mankind to go out and scrape up the various mosses, bake them and/or spread them on our bread as some form of butter or sandwich mix. Just think what it must have been like for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Here they had all the wonderful fruit trees of the spring and fall seasons, just makes my mouth water thinking about it. Then there were the figs, dates, all that kind of fruit. The book of Genesis does not go into all the details, but God must have given them a "tour of the garden" and must have taught them His food laws. He must have shown them all the fruits and all the great green seedbearing vegetation that he had created for them to eat, such as the tomato, the carrots, peas, snow and running beans, the potato, the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, sweet potato, spinach, and many more. I think about the large grapes hanging on the vines, the melons, cantaloup, and then there must have been the blueberry bushes, the raspberry bushes, and the strawberries. Truly the garden of Eden must have been a land flowing with milk and honey, literally and figuratively, for indeed there were the cows and goats for milk, and the bees making their honey. God would have instructed them on which animals were clean and created for meat to eat as part of their diet. We know from the life of Abel and Cain that "animal sacrifices" and "grain offerings" were obviously taught to them by the Eternal from the very start. God brought man and woman together in marriage. He must have instructed them on marriage, sex, childbearing and birth, as well as child rearing. There is so much and so many things God must have taught them, but we are not told those details. It is probably not detailed as we are to take all that as a "given." A God of love and caring and friendship, would not create a full grown man and woman who would find themselves "alive and there" in this garden, without taking lots of time to educate them on the very basics of physical living and marriage and reproduction. God did not create ALL vegetation for human consumption. The variety of vegetation that is green and seed bearing, that is the obvious and needs very little guess-work, is varied indeed. God is a God of variety for sure. The things He has ordained for us as "clean" food to eat is certainly varied, no need to be bored in what we can under God's laws eat for food. One of those food laws is eat lots of fruits and vegetables. The modern scientific world is telling us over and over again that a PART of having a good healthy life is by eating lots of fruits and vegetables. I add as do others in the "natural health industry" that you should eat those fruits and vegetables in organic form if at all possible. If you can have your own garden then you should. It is a wonderful blessing to have organic vegetables in your own back yard. ........................... Keith Hunt--- Compiled and written July 2003 |
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