For many years now, as soon as the days warm up enough to awaken the very earliest of spring wildflowers, I hurry over to where the Palmertown Mountain Range falls steeply to the banks of the Hudson River along Spier Falls Road. To create the road that follows the river here, the mountainside was blasted back from the riverbank some centuries ago, creating steep cliffs that rise directly from the edge of the road. Ledges of sharp-angled rocks traverse these cliffs, and by now those ledges are cushioned with thick mounds of beautiful green mosses, mosses that are constantly dampened by the springs that seep down the mountainside. And every spring, masses of the native wildflower called Early Saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis) rise up from those mossy cushions. Oh, what a lovely sight! Like drifts of snow resting atop soft mounds of bright green! Would those flowers be blooming already?
Oh yes, they certainly are!
The soft moss and delicate flowers create quite a contrast against the spring-darkened and sharply jagged rocks.
The flowers make their home in almost every crack in the rock and mound of moss.
Here's a closer view of the pretty little flowers of Early Saxifrage:
So cute!
Most of the mounds of green moss are the species Spring Apple Moss (Philonotis fontana), the "spring" part of its name suggested by its preference for spring-dampened habitats.
And the "apple" part of its name refers to the apple-round spore capsules the moss will soon be producing:
A second moss that commonly abounds on these spring-watered cliffs is one called Marsh Cardinal Moss (Ptychostomum pseudotriquetrum). As the tiny water droplets adorning this pretty cluster attest, this moss truly thrives in a constantly watered habitat.
In this photo, the Marsh Cardinal Moss (center) is crowded on all sides by the Spring Apple 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.
So much beauty is springing now, even from bare rocks along the road!
