THE SEXY LIVES OF MOSS (THE PLANT, NOT KATE)

As I am exploring the Ozarks, I love to stop and check on the sex lives of moss.  Moss are small, simple plants.  They don’t have vascular tissues which are tubes that transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.  Because moss, lack vascular tissue, they can’t get very tall and they are generally found in moist areas where they can get the water they need for photosynthesis.  As an extreme example, trees have awesome vascular tissues.      

When it rains, moss sperm (yes, moss have sperm) get popped out of the male moss and hopefully can swim to a female moss.  There the sperm fertilizes the egg cell and a mysterious growth that looks like a golf club begins to grow out of the female.  (This is a good time to point out that moss don’t have eggs like chickens nor do they make seeds.  The egg cell of a moss is actually called an archeocyte and forms in the archeogonia.  But we are more interested in their sex lives than the terminology, right?)  This golf-club looking thing is called a sporophyte because it makes… you got it… spores.  The spores explode out of the top of the sporophyte and get carried by the wind to a new, hopefully awesome new home site.  The spore will begin to grow and will form a new leafy, green, little moss.  This leafy, green, little moss will make eggs or sperm and the process will start again.  By the way, those leafy, green, little moss are called gametophytes because they make … gametes (a generic term for egg or sperm).

Large masses of moss make up bogs.  The water in bogs is slightly acidic.  It isn’t enough to eat off your skin like in a horror movie, but it is enough to preserve bodies.  It basically keeps bacteria and fungi from growing and breaking the body down.  Search “bog men” and prepared to be amazed. 

Moss has also been used to pack wounds because it can absorb stuff and because of that slight acidity.  Moss is more effective at absorbing water than kitchen sponges, paper towels, or natural sponges.  I know.  I experimented.

Next time you are hiking through the Ozarks, take a moment to check on the sex lives of the moss along your path.  Run you hand across their soft pillows of gametophytes.  Amaze your friends with such statements as: “My how the moss has mated!” or “Look at the size of that sporophyte!”.  They will assume that since you are in touch with moss, you also know more fun facts.  It will be equivalent to having a towel in a Douglas Adams adventure across the galaxy.