Pages

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Sphaerocarpos update 3/17

All of my Sphaerocarpos specimens have grown very rapidly!

Here is a pic of one. As you can see, it is no longer yellow. Evidently, being moved to a brighter place has increased its health. It's not very obvious in the pic, but my specimens have also decreased the size of their sexual balloons and covered themselves in a network of green threads (I believe they are protonemata, though possibly of mosses). Their thalli are also now no longer tightly appressed to the ground, instead fanning out into the air in all directions. The plants now look like corals covered in spider gossamer.

The balloon shrinkage was not surprising - after all I'd already read long ago that female Sphaerocarpos rapidly reduce their balloon mass and both sexes become unnaturally healthy/fastgrowing when in captivity.

I wish I was capable of such phenotypic plasticity. Unnatural health is so cool...

No comments:

Post a Comment