I know this title is misleading, but that’s how I began this series so I guess I am stuck with it. From below the cotton wool fluffy skirts of the Common Liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha subsp ruderalis) female archegonial heads have now appeared these little lemon coloured egg-shaped pods. They are the mature sporophytes, and they are packed with microscopic spores waiting for the right conditions to pop to ensure the future of the species.
I am at the extremes of my camera and macro lens in trying to show these mature sporophytes. I have had to crop these images to get closer, especially when you consider each yellow pod is around 0.5mm across. Notice in the image directly above how one of these pods have gone ‘pop’, leaving it in tatters, yet releasing a new future generation of plants via its release of spores.
Please click on the images for a larger more detailed view.
Rear garden, Staffordshire, England. June 2017.
How interesting! Tiny Nature is amazing! So much going on that the naked eye normally misses.
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Thank you, Judy 🙂 It is a completely different world at this scale, which I always find quite fascinating.
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Wonderful macros of this micro world, Pete! 🙂
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Thank you, Indira 🙂
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Very interesting, dear Pete, and excellent photos 🙂
Thanks for sharing and have a great weekend
Didi
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Thank you, dear Didi 🙂 Have a wonderful weekend! Pete
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Very interesting Pete. Am enjoying all the phases of this unusual plant.
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Thank you, Peggy 🙂 This is all new to me, the reprodcutive life of a liverwort, so it has been quite fascinating for me each time I discover something new in the cycle.
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Lovely! I like the colours and incredibly narrow focal depth 🙂
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Thank you, Diana 🙂
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I suddenly realised what these little plants look like, especially the second shot – they look horribly like green spiders! Beautiful shots Pete! 🙂
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They kind of remind me of green fingers. But I can see the spider in them also. Thank you, Jude 🙂
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