Thick green carpets of the forest floor
Culbin mosses grow mainly beneath the trees. Some rarer dune mosses such as the Bryum species have been losers rather than winners in the process of tree-planting at here, but Culbin still offers a visual feast of moss, notably in areas under mature, thinned conifers such as those on the Hill 99 viewpoint walk.
Although they are hard to tell apart at first, look closely and you will begin to distinguish between different kinds of moss. A magnifying glass and a good photographic identification book are useful.
Few have common names, so it’s easiest to look for characteristics: Thuidium tamariscinum with its golden or green feather-like stems forming thick mats or clumps; Polytrichum commune with its tiny angular ‘pepper-pot’ seed-heads.
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| Stags-horn clubmoss |
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Clubmosses (Lycopodiopsida) such as stag’s horn clubmoss (pictured on the right) are not in fact mosses at all, but are closer in structure to ferns. Clubmosses are thought to be similar to the earliest vascular plants, with small, scale-like leaves, spores borne in ‘sporangia’ at the bases of the leaves, branching stems and generally a simple form.
Clubmosses have an unlikely link to showbiz. A powder known simply as lycopodium, consisting of dried spores of the common clubmoss, was used in Victorian theatre to produce flame-effects. A blown cloud of spores burned rapidly and brightly, but with little heat. It was considered safe by the standards of the time. How did anyone ever get the idea to burn clubmoss spores for a special effect?
For more on clubmosses, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clubmoss.
As with all nature at Culbin, nothing lives in isolation. Mosses provide a useful habitat for small invertebrates such as beetles, and retain water at ground level.
The British Bryological Society has lots of resources to help you find out more about mosses and the closely related liverworts, and they provide a useful names list online.
If you want to contact other people in Scotland with an interest in mosses, there’s a bryology discussion forum online.
Back to Culbin's plants and wildlife.
