Moss closeup, Home

A blessed rain began in the morning and it continued, sometimes hard, sometimes just a mist, for hours, so it wasn't the best of hiking days. But late in the afternoon, during an almost dry patch, I got out into our woods and spotted, amidst the greenest of moss cushions, the spore capsules that the moss gametophytes had sent skyward... OK, a couple of inches towards the heavens; these are, after all, diminutive plants. As in all things bryophytish, the identity of this unusual moss was not only unknown to me, it also appeared to be unknowable, even though I had the right field guide, Karl McKnight and company's Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians. But I wasn't going to quit and, after two separate runs through all 391 pages, I just might have solved the mystery. If the capsules are indeed purple, then this is probably Ceratodon purpureus, the Purple Moss. If I'm not quite right, well, it's something else.