Two days ago, I posted about the black-gray stuff we had found among the mosses. Well, I had an epiphany overnight. So that called for more investigation.
Here is the black-gray stuff again.
I knew I had seen similar cell arrangements before. So I collected a liverwort next to the house. And my hunch for the black-gray stuff was it might be a liverwort as well.
Here is a close up of the liverwort above!
This is the underside.
Since I had gotten a chemical reaction on the black-gray stuff, I decided to do the same to this specimen. The PD is short for para-phenylenediameine. On the black-gray stuff, I got a yellow chemical reaction. So would I on a different specimen of a liverwort?. My hypothesis was about to be tested.
And it did! Just like the black-gray sample!
This is the fresh liverwort. Next it was time to see if the basic cell structures were similar. And they were similar, but not exact.
Besides the green cells, there were some of these purplish cells. So beautiful! Now I decided to see if I could ID this liverwort. I did the online search and confirmed it further by looking at Liverworts and Hornworts by Crum. I found that this liverwort was a thallose liverwort called Purple-fringed Liverwort (Reboulia hemisphaerica)!
Now to review, the black-gray stuff. This is a close up its cells. Though, they are not quite the same, they are similar. And that is how I came to test my overnight epiphany that this was a liverwort too! So now I have more confidence in my original hypothesis that the black-gray is a coating of mold or yeast. Since this black-gray one did not have any purple, it may be another species. There are other common thallose liverworts it could be. What a fun discovery for me!
OMG! A Queen! I do not recall seeing this species in December! Wow! Seen on my afternoon walk today! October 30, 2004 is the previous latest date I have recorded for this species.
I enjoyed reading about your discovery process!
Thanks Suzanne!
What a great investigation!!!!
😊