moss culture

Subject: Re: moss culture (fwd)
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 13:25:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Janice M. Glime <jmglime@mtu.edu>
To: bryonet-l@mtu.edu

BRYONET

Rod has asked a number of questions about my assistant's technique (Peg
Minahan in an earlier message) for growing mosses. We only have about a
dozen species in culture, and these are all large mosses and liverworts,
started from large clumps. We have not tried any epiphytes or young
colonies or coffee grinders. These include Marchantia polymorpha,
Lunularia cruciata, Conocephalum conicum, Pleurozium schreberi, Ptilium
crista-castrensis, Rhizomnium magnifolium, Leucobryum glaucum,
Polytrichum, Dicranum scoparium, Brachythecium.
I have grown Fissidens (adianthoides?) from both fragments and whole
clumps. This moss seems to be the easiest of all the mosses to establish
in culture or garden, at least among our larger mosses.
One problem in cultures - and in gardens - is pillbugs (isopods). They
devour the green tips and leave behind the brown bases. Eventually they
will eat everything and can totally clean a chunk of wood (in my case
about 1.3 m long by 15 cm, decorticated) in a few months. They devoured a
large mat of outdoor transplants as well.

Janice
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Janice M. Glime, Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Michigan Technological University
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
jmglime@mtu.edu
906-487-2546
FAX 906-487-3167
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