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Chloroplasts (green discs) and accumulated starch granules in cells of Bryum capillare. Botanically, mosses are non-vascular plants in the land plant division Bryophyta. They are usually small (a few centimeters tall) herbaceous (non-woody) plants that absorb water and nutrients mainly through their leaves and harvest carbon dioxide and sunlight to create food by photosynthesis.
In these plants, the sporophytes grow from and are dependent on gametophytes for supply of water and mineral nutrients and photosynthate, the products of photosynthesis. Non-vascular plants play crucial roles in their environments.
Polytrichum commune (also known as common haircap, [2] great golden maidenhair, [2] great goldilocks, [2] common haircap moss, or common hair moss) is a species of moss found in many regions with high humidity and rainfall. The species can be exceptionally tall for a moss with stems often exceeding 30 cm (12 in) and rarely reaching 70 cm (27.5 ...
An example of moss (Bryophyta) on the forest floor in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Bryophytes (/ ˈ b r aɪ. ə ˌ f aɪ t s /) [2] are a group of land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic division, that contains three groups of non-vascular land plants: the liverworts, hornworts, and mosses (Bryophyta sensu lato). [3]
Liverworts can be flat and ribbon-like or leafy. They can reproduce by spore formation or by asexual fragmentation, and photosynthesize to fix carbon from the atmosphere. About 250 moss species have been recorded in biocrust communities, mostly from the families Bryaceae, Pottiaceae, and Grimmiaceae. [2]
Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is an epiphytic flowering plant that often grows upon large trees in tropical and subtropical climates. It is native to much of Mexico , Bermuda , the Bahamas , Central America , South America (as far south as northern Patagonia ), [ 4 ] the Southern United States , and West Indies .
The moss has adapted to grow in low light conditions by utilizing spherical cells in the protonema that act as lenses, collecting and concentrating even the faintest light. The chloroplasts absorb the useful wavelengths of the light and reflect back the remainder towards the light source, giving the moss a greenish-gold glow. [ 4 ]
D. superba is the tallest self-supporting moss in the world, reaching heights of 60 cm (24 in). [4] It has analogous structures to those in vascular plants that support large size, including hydroid and leptoid cells to conduct water and photosynthate, [4] and lamellae that provide gas chambers for more efficient photosynthesis. [5]