First regular Maintenance blog

Recently I did a regular maintenance of my collection. This means, I checked every culture using my stereo microscope and take a mental note of its condition. How vital does it look, do new shoots grow, are they endangered by pests, moulds or algae? Unwanted plant shoots or material which died off are removed, if possible. So far, all but one culture seem to be in good health and growing. Here, for example, I think we see protonema and new gametophytes of Fissidens taxifolius.

Another three, to date unidentified, specimen also seem to be thriving.

This is especially gratifying, because previously they were in rather bad condition. But, mosses appear to need just some more time.

The last, but also very exciting discovery is the development of several sporophytes in different cultures. On the more “zoomed out” pictures they are hard to spot. It is difficult to take good pictures since the camera focuses on the background rather than the sporophyte. I will have to get into macro photography for better pictures.

Why is this exciting news? Well, for several reasons. First, I interpret their occurrence as a sign of pretty good environmental conditions. Then, identifying species is that much easier if you have a sporophyte and a gametophyte to work with. And lastly, they are the preferred starting material for axenic cultures. The capsule can be sterilised in hypochlorous acid, then opened and the spores put on a prepared sterile agar. Chances of success, meaning growth are very high compared to sterilising gametophytic material. I look forward to experimenting with it.