On a fine morning in August's middling pages, a weathered stump along the trail wears a carpet of haircap moss (Polytrichum commune). The delicate wonders emerging from the thatch are dancing sporophytes, fragile strands topped by seed capsules wearing raindrops and filaments of spider silk. Beyond the right edge of the photo, a crab spider is waiting for something tasty to appear and is poised for ambush.
How often does one wander along a trail and not notice such wonders? I suspect the answer is, most of the time, for this old hen anyway.
My moss colony is a tiny jeweled world, complete within itself, and its swaying raindrops hold the whole sunlit forest in their depths, upside down of course. For the life of me, I can't come up with the right words to describe it. A tiny cosmos, teeming with life. Its own history. Its own traditions. Its own stories. Astonishing. Breathtaking. Radiant. Perfect.
Hanging out with the fabulous forest mosses is a soggy business, and getting back on my feet is not as easy as it used to be, but oh, the colors...
2 comments:
Oh, how simply beautiful. All these tiny worlds full of wee inhabitants going about their days. Thank you!
What a wonderful post.
All the best
Guy
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