On the Rocks!

Our thirsty earth got a nice big drink this week, with two rainy days (one of them a long slow soaker) after weeks and weeks of no rain at all. This drought was so prolonged, even the spring-watered cliffs that line Spier Falls Road at the foot of the Palmertown Mountains had been looking really dry.  I treasure these cliffs for providing a perfect habitat for some of our region's most beautiful mosses, lovely masses of greenery that persist in their beauty throughout the year, even after most other plants have withered and dried or are buried beneath heaps of snow. This recent rain must surely have brought refreshment to these beautiful bryophytes.

 

 A true beauty-queen of these mosses, Marsh Cardinal Moss (Ptychostomum pseudotriquetrum) thrives on these spring-watered rocks, where the water's constant dripping adorns each star-shaped leaf-cluster with sparkling droplets.  

In the winter I have found Marsh Cardinal Moss looking quite red, both its leaves as well as the translucent stalks of its sporophytes.  I wonder if this seasonal redness suggested the "cardinal" part of Ptychostomum pseudotriquetrum's vernacular name. Marsh Cardinal Moss sure is easier to spell than that scientific name!

In this photo, the Marsh Cardinal Moss (center) is crowded on all sides by a second water-loving moss, Spring Apple Moss (Philonotis fontana, also known as Fountain Moss). I believe both mosses prefer a calcareous habitat, and I wonder if the springs that normally wet these rocky cliffs are delivering lime to the habitat. I am not sure if the rocks themselves are rich in lime. 

The vernacular name "Spring Apple Moss" relates both to the wet habitat that Philonotis fontana prefers, as well as the round, apple-like shape of its spore capsules, which often can be seen emerging from the mossy clumps in May.

There's another moss, called Bartramia pomiformis, that shares this same spring-watered rocky cliff, and it is in the same family (Bartramiaceae) as Philonotis fontana. This delicate-looking moss has longer and more slender leaves than Philonotis pomiformis, but it also produces round "apple-shaped" spore capsules, hence its vernacular name Apple Moss. I was lucky to find some to photograph while it was fruiting in the spring:

Common Haircap Moss (Polytrichum commune) can tolerate drier conditions, but it also can share the damp habitat of these rocky cliffs.  I loved the contrast between the spiky-leaved green moss and the rough, dark, lichen-dappled rock of the ledge it was growing on.

Wherever there's rock, there's likely to be Rock Polypody Ferns.  And like the mosses that share this site, they persist in their green state on these rocky ledges all winter. 

I am not sure whether this is the Appalachian Polypody (Polypodium appalachianum) or the Virginia Polypody (P. virginianum), since P. appalachianum is a relatively recently described species that refined the description of Polypodium virginianum.  Since the New York Flora Atlas describes the habitat of P. appalachianum as "rims of cliffs, ledges, tops of boulders in forests, and talus slopes on thin mesic soil over rocks,"  I'm going to bet that this bunch of Polypody Ferns is Appalachian Polypody. The habitat  certainly seems right.

During the growing season, these cliffs are also home to many beautiful flowering plants as well.  (See this post from a visit in May for proof of that.) But the same plant, Early Saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis), that turns these cliffs into a gorgeous rock garden in May, also beautifies them all winter long, with elegant rosettes of evergreen leaves with purple ruffled edges.

And then, when Winter arrives in earnest, the springs keep dripping and ice takes over the role of roadside beautification!