Mystery, Um, “Solved!”

Remember these?

…and my confusion about whether or not they were reproductive structures, given that I’d been told that moss reproduced sexlessly?

Well, a little Googlin’ revealed that, in fact, they’re sporogonia,  little capsules full of spores.  Here they are five days later, having a smoke after exploding in reproductive ecstasy:

Turns out sphagnum moss has the happy ability to reproduce both sexually (through spores) and asexually (through bits breaking off to form genetically identical clones.)

If I were moss, I suspect I’d opt for the former.

It’s really quite simple – here, let me quote from the web article where I learned this:

“The haploid spores are derived from diploid sporocytes by meiosis: After replication of the genome, homologous pairs of chromosomes come into close proximity, and crossovers of their chromatids may occur. During metaphase I, the chromosome pairs line up across the equator of the spindle; in anaphase I, they separate and move to opposite ends of the spindle. Subsequently, comparable to mitosis, two new spindles separate the chromatides during metaphase II and anaphase II. Thus, meiosis of one diploid sporocyte yields four haploid spores… “

Um…

‘k.

This will be on the test, kids!

😉