Parasoll mossa is its Swedish name, and once established that mossa means “moss”, doesn't require much explanation the Parasoll part, due to its shape. Splachnum luteum, its scientific name, thrives in moist boreal forests, raising in summer this structure around one centimeter wide. To make it simple, I've always called it a “flower”, when met it along with friends or visitors, but it isn't. Being that plant a moss (a peat moss , to be precise), these small, vaguely mammary coins are actually sporangia, organs which contain the reproductive spores in fungi, mosses and ferns. Usually tiny and humble, in this case they assume quite a floral appearance... A coincidence? There's basically not such a thing in Nature, where everything has a specific reason to exist. The Yellow Moosedung Moss, as it's called following its preferred thriving “ground”, exploits insects to spread, and therefore needs a showy and irresistible appeal in order to make them to alight on itself, and then to fly away with the spores stuck to their body. This is exactly what it happen with “regular” flowers, bees, pollen etc.: it's called parallel evolution, when different organisms develop similar structures to perform the same tasks. Comments are closed.
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All site contents are: © Vitantonio Dell'Orto, all rights reserved worldwide. The Chronicles of Särna, and other stories from the North.
I live in Sweden, in Särna (Dalarna). The Chronicles are a photo diary about the nature (but not just) here around and from all the Scandinavian areas where my photo job takes me.
My book: "My Sweden - Tales from an Italian photographer in the North" is available in the bookstores and by the publisher.
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