I’m on study leave this week. A friend of Carol’s offered to let stay in her house in Maine, which is good for my studying, since there are fewer things here to distract me. And when I need a break from studying (to stretch my legs and rest my brain), I can go outside and look at the amazing diversity of mosses and liverworts around here. Mosses and liverworts can be surprisingly beautiful, as in the photo below.
This is a view through the microscope of the peristome on a capsule of Dicranum species — the peristome is a structure that holds the spores in the capsule until they are ready to be released. I find the colors and shapes quite beautiful.
As an added bonus, it snowed for several hours. Although it was cold enough to snow, it was too warm for any accumulation of snow to build up; we had the beauty of snow without the mess. And it was quite something to watch large flakes of snow fall on tiny moss plants.
