Botany Bucket List

Bug-on-a-stick, Buxbaumia. I have no idea what gives this moss it’s common name but even the scientific name seems to ring of ‘bug’. Other common names for this moss include Bug moss, Humpbacked elves, or Elf-cap moss.

Buxbaumia aphylla. Image credit: Clea Moray

There are about 12 species of Buxbaumia worldwide and the genus comes under it’s own family, the Buxbaumiaceae. In Tasmania, Australia where I currently reside, there are allegedly 2 species of Buxbaumia, B. aphylla and B. tasmanica. I have seen neither. Frankly I’ll be overjoyed to see ANY Buxbaumia.

Although this plant is not a flowering plant like what the bulk of this blog is going to feature, it comes under my list of plants to see before I die because it has an:

1.Interesting life form

It is a botanical curiosity in the moss world. Unlike most other mosses, it does not have any apparent leaves. When not in ‘fruit’, the plant consists simply of algae-like filaments.

Because of the very unique algal-like existence that it exhibits, bryologists (or plant scientists who specialize in mosses and related plants) used to think that mosses like Buxbaumia was an evolutionary link between algae and and the first bryophytes.

However, more recent research suggests that Buxbaumia is as ancient a lineage of mosses as previously thought and that it’s algae-like characteristics is a derived trait.

2. Interesting fruit morphology

The ‘fruit’ or more accurately, the sporophyte or capsule, has a very unique flattened shape, which makes it instantly recognizable once seen. This unique capsule structure has been interpreted as being a transitional between that of primitive mosses and modern ones.

Status: Yet to see

Links to info on Buxbaumia:

Bryophyte Flora of North America – Buxbaumiaceae

Wiki entry – Buxbaumiaceae