Macro pics of my probable fern gametophytes

 

Sorry if the pic of the iridescent species looks oversaturated. It looked fine on my other device because different devices display colors differently.

Xanthoria or bust (continued)

 

I am pleased to report that I went to a coastal urban park and got my hands on Xanthoria parietina last Sunday! My painful lack of specimens is finally over!

I also discovered that its preferred temperatures during photosynthesis were way lower than I thought. I'm keeping my specimens dehydrated (and thus dormant) until my new mini refrigerator arrives.

Stay tuned I guess.

Update: forgot to post pic of park. Here:

20-day timelapse of iridescent thing (June 4 to 24)

 

Note the stick in the top left. I painstakingly adjusted both pics so the stick was pretty much the same angle and size in each. I also no longer think there is much chance of it being a marchantiophyte; morphological cues strongly hint to me it is a self-replicating fern gametophyte that is unable or unwilling to produce sporophytes.

Also, I am planning to send it to a lab for analysis! To my (and the fern researcher I talked to's) knowledge, iridescence has never been documented in fern gametophytes before.

Update to previous post

 

Here is the specimen I had labeled "not pictured"; I finally summoned up the energy to rephotograph it. Also I just discovered at least one unsolicited moss gametophyte which popped up in the cup (I say "at least" because the algal covering is so dense I can barely tell alga from moss).

Hi sorry for not posting

Over the course of the past few months I've managed to have a ton of adventures but they were all extremely boring ones, and summoning the motivation to post has been rather hard.

Anyways, remember that thing I found as a grocery store weed? Yeah here it is, it's grown considerably and become all shimmery (reminds me of Schistostega or some of the green-iridescent Begonia). Normally, neon iridescence of this sort concentrates dim light to aid photosynthesis, but I'm not 100% sure it has any adaptive benefit in this case; the effect seems to be caused by tiny condensation droplets on the underside and apparently disappears when the soil is sufficiently dry. But then again, perhaps the plant is "deliberately" engineering itself in a way that the droplets focus light onto its body? Who knows!

Also note that the center of this rosette is non-iridescent. This is because of the powdery gemmae that develop at the edges of each thallus.

Other news: the more fern-like thallus (not pictured) is still doing well and has gotten bigger (though still no detectable sporophyte or asexual reproduction).

Oh yeah all my Sphaerocarpos died months ago (long unimportant story involving water chemistry difficulties) but I acquired a ton of other Marchantiophyta! More on that later.